


Dangling Participles

by Guede



Series: The Time Travel Grammar Book [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Hale Family, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Baby Werewolves, Babysitter Scott McCall, Biting, Can't Miss a Cliché Like That, Cock Warming, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Flash Forward, Humor, M/M, Multi, Nipple Play, Obviously Stiles Is Taking Peter To Prom, Overstimulation, Pack Bonding, Pack Cuddles, Pack Dynamics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prom, Prostate Massage, Scenting, Torture, Young Chris Argent, Young Hales, Young Peter Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-07
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:06:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 22,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7130150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guede/pseuds/Guede
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing scenes, extended epilogues, and other odds 'n ends for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/series/465526">The Time Travel Grammar Book</a>.</p><p>9/24/17: Added a ficlet focusing on Peter's relationship with Talia's kids.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hale-pile on Stiles

“Shut up,” Stiles mutters as soon as Lydia comes into the room.

Lydia stops by the end of the couch, absently tucking her laptop more under her arm. It takes a few seconds to sort out all the various bodies from the lumps and dips outlined in the blanket thrown across the couch bed—she always forgets about the children’s stuffed animals—but eventually she determines that Peter’s curled up between Stiles and the far couch arm, holding Cora across both of their laps, while Laura’s flopped out with her fingertips just peeking from the blanket at Lydia’s end, with her feet near Stiles’ hip and Basil Stag Hare rounding over her belly. And that’s Derek tucked up against Stiles’ other side, his stuffed wolf making him look as if he’s got an extra-large scruff of hair brushing Stiles’ shoulder.

“I should tell Scott he doesn’t need to feel so guilty about giving up babysitting duty,” Lydia says, while Stiles makes an impressive selection of annoyed faces at her. “Every time we send him out of town, he ends up buying them a toy store’s worth of apology presents.”

“Should’ve just sent me anyway, every single ex-Argent team we’ve had to claw Chris’ inheritance back from has been full of assholes, I don’t know why we’re still taking the kid-glove approach,” Stiles says. Then his grimace shifts to pained as a small, muffled, whistling noise starts up from the Cora lump. As cranky as he sounds, he’s very careful about worming his arm from around Peter and slipping it down and adjusting whatever body part Cora has attached herself to. “You know you and I are just going to blast the shit out of them once they turn down his offer, anyway.”

Lydia shrugs and then swivels so she can perch on the couch. She starts slipping her feet out of her heels. “It’s a good bonding exercise for Scott and Chris. And it gets you an extra bedroom to have some privacy with Peter, and don’t tell me you don’t appreciate it, Stiles.”

“I think we all appreciate it,” Peter murmurs, just as Stiles starts to sputter at her. His slitted eyes show a faint blue glow as he glances at Lydia, and then he nudges his head a little further under Stiles’ chin. “Please tell me you’re coming back from the zoning board. God, I’m dying for my own bedroom again.”

“I think we all are,” Lydia says dryly. She watches Peter twitch under the blanket, and then suppresses a sigh as Stiles gets completely distracted by that and starts pecking at the hairline at the side of Peter’s brow, a goofy smile on his face. 

With the inevitable result that Peter twitches again and disturbs one of the children, who complains and bumps another child, who then sets off the last one. Stiles leaves off the smooching with an exasperated sigh and squirms out his arm on top of the blanket, then starts awkwardly patting the kid-lumps while making shushing noises.

“Emphasis on the ‘all,’” Lydia says.

“I’d really like to know how Scott manages it,” Stiles mutters, shooting her an annoyed look. “Swear to God, came back early a couple days ago and Scott and Chris were way closer to third than second base, and not a peep out of any of them. They were snoozing away—on the other side of the _bed_ , no less, seriously, Scott’s the kiddie-nip, not me, so why I always end up trapped under an avalanche of—”

The blanket stirs, then parts for a shiny black nose, an anatomically incorrect wolfy grin, and two pointy, plush ears. The pair of hands gripping the toy wolf squeeze in around its body; the movement attracts Stiles’ attention and he looks down just as Derek’s head emerges after the wolf, a strangely intent, serious expression on the boy’s face.

“ _Don’t be a sourwolf!_ ” the wolf tells Stiles. Over its head, Derek solemnly nods.

Peter snorts. Then makes a lengthy strangled noise. Stiles twists over and looks at the top of Peter’s head and Peter straightens up, catches a glimpse of Stiles’ disbelieving face, and falls into unapologetic hysterics against Stiles’ shoulder. He’s laughing so hard that Cora crawls out of the blankets to poke at him while saying “Pee-taa?” over and over again, and finally Stiles has to take Cora onto his lap so Peter can giggle into his back.

“That is an unfair use of your face,” Stiles says to Derek.

Who blinks and frowns. “My face?” 

Derek looks confused, glances around for help—Laura’s decided this is all boring and has gone back to sleep—and then sees the wolf in his arms. So he points it at Stiles again and squeezes it, and at that point Lydia succumbs to a few snickers.

“This is not what Fang is supposed to do for you, Derek,” Stiles complains over the chirpy electronic voice. “He’s supposed to reduce your future jerkitude, not weaponize your current cuteness. Why is it my plans never work out like they’re supposed to?”

Lydia puts her laptop safely on an armchair, well away from small grabby hands, and then puts her shoes on top of it. Then she climbs onto the couch bed with them. She has to move Laura, but the girl stops complaining once she realizes that Lydia is, in fact, going to let her snuggle into expensive couture clothing—for which Lydia’s put three duplicates of each garment into climate-controlled storage. Still, Lydia can’t help a grimace as little fingers wrinkle up her silk blouse.

Or, to be honest, a snort that’s dangerously close to fond as Laura starts purring into her side. They are fatally cute at this age, even Lydia has to admit.

“It’s all right, Derek,” Peter tells the boy, still wheezing slightly. “You’re just living up to the family wit. Keep it up and I’ll be very, very proud of you.”

“And you,” Stiles says, sounding as if he’s going to scold Peter.

Peter smiles up at him and Stiles sighs, as if he isn’t already tipping his head to meet Peter’s mouth halfway. While they kiss, Lydia rummages around for the remote and then changes the TV to something that doesn’t involve cartoons.

“That’s the future for you,” she says to herself. “You really never do know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And a nod to [catlyon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/catlyon/pseuds/catlyon) for the work title.


	2. Peter's prom and Scott/Chris doing a terrible job as chaperones

“One more,” Talia says, tugging her brother back by his tie. “And don’t make that face at me, you had years of school dances without me—”

“Which I miss, a lot, right now,” Peter grumbles, batting off her hands.

Stiles steps up behind Peter, grinning, and Peter stops with a stifled noise that makes Talia, who’s fiddling with her camera, raise her head and cock her brow. Then she glances down, but Stiles wouldn’t be Stiles if he hadn’t already moved his hands to the safe zone of Peter’s waist. “C’mere,” Stiles says, craning his head over Peter’s shoulder. “Give her your good angle and then we can get this show on the road.”

“All my angles are good angles,” Peter huffs, his head already half-turned, and then his annoyance melts right off his face as Stiles leans in towards him. Scott can see Stiles has half an eye on Talia, and sure enough, a beat before Talia presses down on the button, Stiles presses his lips to Peter’s, making Peter close his eyes and perfectly avoid any strobe-eye problem.

“All right, there,” Talia says, putting away her camera. “Now get going, and _please_ don’t make us pick you up from jail.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, I haven’t done that in at least the last three alternate-timeline proms,” Stiles says. He slides around so that he’s got his arm encircling Peter’s waist and then he starts sauntering them towards the high school. “Besides, Lydia dropped a small fortune on these suits, she’ll kill me if I rough them up.”

Talia looks somewhat less reassured by both of those points, though when Scott clears his throat to explain, she just sighs and waves him off. “It’s fine, it’s fine, I know he’ll…well, he’ll watch out for Peter, at any rate. Anyway, if those suits fit anything like this dress, I doubt they can even move to get up to anything.”

Scott nods sympathetically, tugging at his collar while Talia pinches the fabric at her hip. “Well, you look really great, at least?”

She smiles at him, but her brow’s cocked again. “You don’t think the neckline’s pushing it for a chaperone? I’m not sure what Lydia was thinking there.”

“I…um…I don’t really—never really pay attention to that kind of thing,” Scott says. He pries his fingers away from his collar before he ends up unraveling the knot again, and then sticks his hands in his trouser-pockets for good measure. “Anyway, it’s prom, nobody ever really pays attention to the chaperones except to avoid them.”

“True,” Talia says. Her attention is drifting and Scott can see the warning flex in the muscles of her arms and shoulders.

He looks at where she’s looking, which is Stiles and Peter at the banner-bedecked entrance to the high school. Stiles is in the middle of paying for tickets, so he’s got his back to a group of boys coming up the front steps, but Peter’s facing them and he looks tense. He and the boys obviously know each other, and from what Scott’s gathered, Peter isn’t exactly popular at school.

“ _Somebody_ brought their drug-dealer,” one boy mutters to another.

“Oh, please, you and I both know you’re cut off till you get Mommy and Daddy to pony up and clear your account,” Stiles says, turning back around. He glances at the speaker—who is stammering wild denials—flicks his eyes up and down, and then snorts as he takes Peter’s hand. “On second thought, forget it. If you’re dressing like _that_ , I don’t need you lowering the class of my clientele.”

Peter’s so obviously thrilled that he doesn’t say anything to the boys, or even smirk at them. He practically bounces into the school, looking at Stiles with what even Scott would call shining eyes. And, Scott is amused to hear, he can hear at least two girls and one boy inside the school asking urgently who is the _awesome_ guy Hale brought.

“I take it Stiles was always the slightly suspicious-looking kid in the back,” Talia says, tone dry, but looking considerably more relaxed. 

“Actually, his dad was the local sheriff and he was friends with most of the deputies, so we didn’t get into much trouble,” Scott says. Talia looks at him and he ducks his head, rubbing at the side of his head. “Really. Up till the year we found out about werewolves, but before that, we honestly were pretty good kids. So, Chris and I should probably get going, meet you back here at midnight?”

Talia still looks more than a little disbelieving, but she doesn’t seem inclined to pry right now and just agrees that that sounds good. She is going to be busy tonight, smoozing with the teachers and other parents; once she and Peter had decided they’d stay in Beacon Hills and just build a new house, Talia had jumped right into re-integrating them into local society. People are, and probably always will be, wary of the Hale family, but people also can be protective of their ‘own’ against outsiders, no matter how they feel about the local weirdos in private, as Stiles puts it. And there are plenty of other hunters out there, so having a few more eyes looking out for strangers never hurts. Scott and Lydia and Stiles are all pretty much doing the same—Scott’s even gone so far as to get a part-time job at the school, helping out Finstock who has less wrinkles but who otherwise is disturbingly identical to the older versions.

“Hey, Mr. McCall!” calls somebody.

Think of it and it’ll come. Scott jerks his head up, then smiles and nods at the two girls walking across the parking lot. Chris leans past him to look at them, then straightens up, absently tugging at his tie. “They from one of your lacrosse teams?” he asks.

“Yeah, Kaley and Hilary are junior varsity,” Scott says. Then he frowns as Chris suddenly curses under his breath. “What’s wrong?”

“Just this stupid…” Chris takes a few steps to the side, so they’re out of the way of traffic, and then reaches up with both hands to fidget with his tie. The instrument case he has slung across his back swings around under his arm and he swears again, slapping one hand down to stop it before it rams into Scott’s side. “And I thought Kevlar was uncomfortable.”

Scott steps so that he’s facing the other man, laughing under his breath. Then he reaches up and starts fixing Chris’ tie. “But these look a lot better than Kevlar, you have to admit.”

Chris breathes in a little sharply, and suddenly Scott realizes where he’s got his hands. He even has two fingers slipped between Chris’ shirt-collar and Chris’ throat, because he was trying to see if the collar-stud might have been the issue, and now he’s half-forgotten what he’s doing because he and Chris are standing very close together and Chris is staring right into his eyes, gaze dark and melting. And then Chris deliberately half-closes his eyes, so Scott can’t help but notice how long his lashes are, and lifts his chin.

“Honestly, I said fine to this one because I thought the ones she was shoving at me were looking worse and worse, and I just wanted to get out of there,” Chris says. Murmurs more than mutters, voice low and gravelly and almost not annoyed.

Another person calls out to Scott and he blinks, and remembers they’re standing in a public parking lot. He takes a deep breath, and then finishes with Chris’ tie. And then steps back and Chris _does_ look good, and he’s been half-thinking he needs to not think about that since Chris walked out of the bathroom back at the house and grunted that he was done. The suit’s nothing fancy, black jacket and trousers with white dress shirt, classic lines, but it…Scott thinks about hunt and prey, about lean bodies slipping gracefully through the woods, and for a second his canines just ache to bite.

“You look good,” Scott manages.

Chris lowers his chin and looks at him, and then really looks at him, eyes widening. Then he grimaces and ducks away, glancing at the people walking around them. He hunches up a little, head down and shoulders up, and any other outfit, he’d look uncomfortable, but the suit somehow makes him look—look elegant, even like that. Scott does not get fashion, but once in a while, he thinks he does get _fit_ , and why Lydia will drop so much money on it.

“Mr. McCall!” the person calls again.

“Oh, sorry, hey, Claire,” Scott says. He smiles at the girl walking towards them, and then slings his arm across Chris’ shoulders before the man can edge any further away. “How are you?”

The girl pauses, her scent changing from eager to confused to an odd mix of disappointment and interest, and then she straightens up and smiles at Scott. “I’m good, thanks. Hi there, I’m Claire, I play on the varsity team that Mr. McCall coaches.”

She’s speaking to Chris, who smells startled but who keeps it out of his face as he extends his hand. “Chris,” he says.

“Right, sorry, I should’ve introduced you,” Scott says as they shake hands.

Claire laughs and tells him not to worry about it, and then they chat a little bit about a college scholarship he helped her apply for. They also talk about how Scott is finding the town, and then Claire walks off to join a group of friends who’ve come up in the meantime.

“They seem to be buying the whole distant cousin of Talia’s story,” Chris observes, listening to their excited chatter.

Scott shrugs and then pulls them up onto the sidewalk before any other students he coaches can catch him. “The parents are still a little suspicious. I think the kids—”

“Are a little busy crushing on you?” Chris says dryly, as one girl sighs about Scott’s jawline.

Sometimes, Scott thinks, they are so, so far away from the teenagers they used to be. And then another girl mentions how she doesn’t even mind if she doesn’t have a chance, she just wants a good view because _damn_ but their coach and his boyfriend must be hot together, and Chris chokes and stumbles.

Scott hauls Chris back up, twisting his hand in the strap of Chris’ case, and then he leaves his hand there, pressed by the strap into Chris’ chest. Chris doesn’t move away from that, but he makes a soft, curious noise, the kind only another werewolf could hear and understand.

When Scott rumbles a reassurance back, Chris glances sharply at him, and then shifts over slightly to press their hips together. He feels tense, smells a little nervous; they’ve been taking it slow but every time Scott shows any willingness, Chris immediately pushes. If Scott isn’t ready, Chris will back off—and usually slinks away in a guilt-stricken panic for a little bit, till Scott goes and gets him.

But tonight it’s okay, Scott thinks. And then Chris moves over to make room for a group of laughing teenagers, and instead of moving with him, Scott turns so that his nose and mouth end up pressed into the side of Chris’ face. Scenting him a little, slight whiff of cologne over the lingering sting of shaving cream, the minerally tap water. His lips brush freshly-shaven, sensitive skin and Chris shivers against him and maybe they’re in public, maybe Scott’s having a flashback to his dumber days and losing his mind, but it just feels…right.

“Scott?” Chris whispers.

“Let’s go,” Scott says, reluctantly dragging himself away.

He tugs his hand free of Chris’ case strap, but does keep his arm over Chris’ shoulders. They walk into the school, check in at the chaperone station, and then detour around the main dance area to emerge at the back. It’s still early enough that nobody’s sneaking out yet, but Scott breathes in and along with the grass of the sports fields, he can smell at least three booze caches.

As responsible adults—which Scott still has a hard time believing he is—they root those out, and then they take up seats on the bleachers, where they can see both the school and the treeline at the edge of the property. The Nemeton’s unrestricted again, and slowly being bribed into favoritism by Stiles and Lydia, and they did double patrols the night before to check for anything weird. But still, this is Beacon Hills, and it’s senior prom. No point in getting caught out by a cliché.

Chris breaks open the instrument case and quickly assembles his rifle from the parts inside, and then straps that under the bleacher bench. He takes out a couple pistols as well, and then hides those when Scott turns them down. It’s not that werewolves just won’t use them; he’s been teaching the Hales how to use a gun and that was at Talia’s request. And Scott’s used guns in the past, it’s just…he’s still not good enough with one to trust his aim when he’s moving a werewolf-speed, and he doesn’t want to risk hurting anyone he doesn’t mean to.

“Okay, we’re set,” Chris says, pulling himself back onto the bench beside Scott. He looks out over the field, sniffing, and then reaches up to loosen his tie. “All that money and trouble, and I think people saw us in them for what, fifteen, twenty minutes at most?”

“Well, we’re looking at each other,” Scott says.

He looks over just as Chris raises his head, and Chris just _wants_. It’s a palpable force, not just smell or sight or sound, but all of that and then something more, like a hand reaching over and pressing its heated palm against Scott’s chest.

“Yeah,” Chris says, abruptly turning away. He drops his elbows onto his knees and slouches slightly onto them, fidgeting with his dangling tie. “So, your prom, nothing much happened?”

Scott snorts before he can help himself. “No, that was after we got into the supernatural. But we were barely at it, you know, we had stuff—it wasn’t really that different from before we knew about werewolves, to be honest. I mean, back then, we didn’t have things trying to kill us all the time, but we were…we weren’t cool. Well, Stiles and I weren’t. You know, not much to do but stand around and—well, I’m assuming things, sorry—”

“No, I know what you mean,” Chris mutters, looking down between his knees. He scuffs his feet, then looks up towards the woods. “I think I went to…three dances, maybe? For all of high school? My parents pulled me out a lot for hunts.”

“But you did get in three,” Scott says.

Chris shakes his head, and then moves his arms back so that he’s gripping his knees. He pushes himself up and then heaves out his breath. “Yeah, but can’t really get a date, you’re missing as much class as I did. I didn’t have such a nice suit either.”

He looks over with that last part, using one hand to flick his tie at Scott. There’s a half-smile on his face and even though he’s still a little tense, he looks genuinely…he really wants to be here, he wants to sit up in these stupid bleachers with Scott all night.

And God, but how he looks. There’s no light at the field, just the light from the half-moon above them and what little’s reaching them from the school windows, so everything’s in shades of grey and black. Chris’ shirt-collar looks almost bone-white against the dark of his suit, and above it, his face has a strange, pearly sheen to it that makes Scott’s fingers twitch.

So Scott reaches over and touches Chris’ cheek, half-thinking it can’t be as slick as it looks, and it’s not. It’s soft, warm, it glides under his fingers as Chris turns towards him and the moonlight silvers Chris’ eyes, makes them look as if they’ve got mirrors in the back, even without the werewolf glow. Chris’ hair is almost white, but it isn’t washed-out; it’s ivory, it’s still got a warmth to it that reminds Scott of the morning sun.

“Scott?” Chris says again. Uncertain, hopeful, voice rough with nerves and with a tentative but growing lust. “Do you—”

“Here,” Scott says. He means to say ‘come’ before that, but his throat’s tight and the one word he does get out is ninety-percent growl.

Chris’ chin immediately drops. He sucks his breath, the inhale fighting past an outgoing whine, and then pivots so that Scott’s hand slides off his cheek and onto his throat. He’s going—maybe for Scott’s lap, Scott isn’t sure because before he can, Scott hooks his fingers up behind Chris’ tie-knot and drags him over by the tie.

And Chris’ foot catches on something so he goes down, his knee hitting the plank for their feet, and then he slides across that, his hands grabbing at Scott’s knee as they both twist around the problem and get their mouths together.

Scott grabs the man by the back of the head, pulling him up. Chris is already groaning and he scrabbles at Scott’s knee, then at the bench before levering himself up between Scott’s legs. His hands come down on either side of Scott, then retreat to grip at Scott’s thighs as Scott bites at his lower lip. He shudders and it goes all the way into Scott’s legs, making Scott’s feet rattle against the plank.

They’ve messed around, but they haven’t slept together yet. It just hasn’t…felt like the right moment, though they’ve gotten worked up—Scott’s gotten Chris worked up enough that he honestly can’t believe the man’s still coming back, after being left like that. But that really was messing around, Scott suddenly realizes, as Chris hangs onto his thighs like they’re the only thing keeping him from falling through the earth. That was messing around and this—this isn’t even close to the same.

It’s not the full moon, and anyway, Scott’s long since gotten his werewolf nature under control. But right now it’s like he’s forgotten all of that, like he never even learned it in the first place. He bends over Chris and he’s not kissing the man, he’s taking his mouth. He holds the back of Chris’ neck and Chris moans and bends under the weight of his hand, and he pulls at Chris’ tie and Chris tips his head back for Scott, and Scott has to rip his mouth away before he just loses it completely and bites off Chris’ lip. Because he wants to _bite_. To take the man kneeling in front of him, to have that from him. If he could, right now, he’d hunt down the alpha who turned Chris just for having the—the temerity to bite first.

“Scott,” Chris rasps. “Scott, God, Scott—”

“I want you,” Scott says against Chris’ skin, right over the sweat-softened collar. He presses his face into that spot, gets a good long sniff, _takes_ Chris’ scent. His fangs lengthen, he can feel that, and he has to shift his head to keep from biting right then and there. “Want you.”

Chris makes a ragged, incoherent sound, and then he gives up on human, goes straight to low, twisting whimpers as he struggles to keep himself up. His one hand comes off Scott’s leg and then clamps around Scott’s upper arm, hard enough that Scott can feel the flesh bruise and try to heal and then bruise again under it.

“Turn,” Scott says. He’s barely human either, grunting his words, too busy rubbing his face into Chris’ neck. When Chris tilts his head, pulling his throat away from the shirt-collar, making a space, Scott shoves his nose and mouth as deep as he can into that gap.

Whining, Chris gets his other arm up and around Scott’s neck. He jams his face against Scott’s shoulder, then jerks it around the other way, so he can lap at Scott’s jaw, along it and under it, following the hollows. He’s pleading like a puppy, doing that, licking the jaw to try and get Scott to drop something good for him.

Scott growls and drags his head out of Chris’ collar. Some remnant of himself remembers, makes him drop his hand from Chris’ tie—Chris sways as if Scott dropped a string holding him up—and then he turns his wrist and cups his fingers and presses them down over the erection pushing out the front of Chris’ trousers. Chris hitches violently, his breath wetting the whole side of Scott’s neck, moaning and whining as he cants his hips up, rubs his throat into Scott’s mouth.

“I just—I—” _I am so glad you waited, I am so thankful you were patient_ is what Scott wants to say, but the words won’t come, just crushed by the overwhelming “—want you, want you, Chris—”

“Please,” is strung out of Chris as if somebody baited a hook and caught him on it.

He groans and digs his fingers into Scott’s arm and back as Scott jerks open his belt and fly, then pulls out his cock. Chris is damp there with sweat, getting sticky near the tip, but it won’t be enough to smooth the way and Scott—he _wants_ him, doesn’t want to hurt him. Doesn’t want to stop either and Scott snarls in frustration and Chris seizes against him, pumping forward so his cock slides itself into Scott’s grip, making desperate, urgent, throat-low noises.

Scott snarls again, deeper, slower, and Chris whines in response, nudging his face at the underside of Scott’s jaw. Chris’ cock twitches in Scott’s hand even though Scott doesn’t do anything to it and Scott gets how to handle it, handle him then. Bends over, gets his mouth right behind Chris’ ear. Sinks his teeth into the delicate flesh there and then sucks his lips down around them, sealing in his rumble so it goes straight into Chris, none of it wasted.

Chris’ whimper breaks and he gasps airlessly, shaking. His hips push forward again and it’s almost but not quite—Scott moves his hand up to the top of Chris’ cock, running his thumb through the precome slicks, and with his other hand, the one still holding Chris’ nape, he tips Chris’ head so he can get at the place in the throat where the pulse beats strongest.

“Want,” Scott says to that spot. He kisses it, as Chris shudders, and then rakes it over with his top teeth. “You.”

He can feel Chris’ body coil itself up as tight as it can go, till it feels like he’s holding onto something made of steel wire. Scott noses aside Chris’ collar again, burrowing till his lips brush the hard ridge of Chris’ shoulder, and then he bites down just as the tension peaks.

Chris muffles a cry into Scott’s shoulder as he comes, his face grinding into the crook of Scott’s neck. His hand slips from its grip on Scott’s arm and Scott lets go of Chris’ neck and catches him around the waist barely in time, holding him up as he collapses into a long, trembling whimper. 

“Alpha, God, alpha, _Scott_ ,” Chris groans. He lips at Scott’s throat and when Scott purrs at him, he shivers so hard that Scott almost thinks he’s come again. Then he hauls himself up, just long enough to press an openmouthed kiss to Scott’s throat.

Chris folds till he’s hanging from Scott’s arm. Scott heaves at him, but even with alpha strength, the angle’s too far. Unless he wants to pull away from the other man and he doesn’t. It’s awkward but he waits it out till Chris’ trembling stops, purring and occasionally lapping at the sweat running down Chris’ face.

“Jesus,” Chris mutters. He puts a shaky hand on Scott’s knee, pushes at it. He’s a little too weak, but he tries again a few seconds later and this time, he gets himself up enough to look at Scott. He’s flushed, that skin turned from bone to cream, and his mouth is still swollen. “Fuck. Scott…”

“Fuck,” Scott says, seeing a dark patch spreading out from under Chris’ suitcoat. He yanks Chris’ tie, pauses as that comes completely out of the knot, and then drops that and pulls open the first couple buttons of Chris’ shirt. Slips in his hand as Chris blinks. “Didn’t mean to bite you that hard.”

Chris blinks again, and then laughs. Warm, soft, tilting his head up to nuzzle at the side of Scott’s jaw as he absently moves his hands up and down Scott’s thighs. “’s okay, not bleeding out or anything, it’ll scab over and then I can pull my coat over it. And I don’t think you ripped my shirt, so Lydia won’t get mad.”

“It’s stained pretty bad,” Scott says. He can feel the skin knitting up and he presses his fingertips over the broken places. 

To help staunch the blood, but Chris sucks in his breath, eyes darkening, arousal rising in his scent again as he stares up at Scott. “I can get that out later. Trust me, if I know anything, it’s getting out suspicious stains.”

“I believe you,” Scott says, smiling. He shifts as his back twinges at the bad angle, and then grimaces, feeling his trousers strain over his untended erection. The crotch feels more than a little damp, and he wonders if that’ll show when they go back inside. He should probably take his coat off just in…

Chris is looking between his legs. At that damp spot, lower lip sucked back under his teeth, as if he’s absolutely ravenous. And then Chris looks up at him and the mix of plea and hunger in the man’s eyes just takes Scott’s breath away for a second.

“Can I?” Chris says, nearly a whisper. “Scott, please, I just—can I just—”

Scott tries to swallow his groan. Doesn’t get there, and a flash of pure enjoyment goes through Chris’ eyes as Scott ends up snarling a wordless demand instead.

Then Chris drops his head. Proper submission, whining softly, putting his mouth close enough that Scott can see it making the end of his tie flutter. His tie that he wrenches loose, needing more air, and as he does that Chris stretches towards him, then twists at the last moment so that it’s the cheek and not the mouth that presses into Scott’s crotch.

Scott growls again. Chris purrs to placate him, then rolls his head so that he’s mouthing up and down the crotch seam, adding to the dampness. Scott growls a third time, unable to just find his English-speaking ability, and then he grabs Chris’ shoulders and Chris just purrs louder.

Thankfully, Chris also gets his hands up and gets Scott’s fly open. He glances up once and then bluntly drops his mouth over Scott’s cock, done with teasing. He—hasn’t done this much, Scott half-thinks, mostly reacting to a sudden spike of nerves in Chris’ scent.

Frankly, Scott doesn’t care. He grips Chris’ shoulders and tries to not just shove his cock into the man’s mouth, but he doesn’t always manage that. Because that mouth is warm and wet, and it might fumble a little, might not be perfectly tight around Scott, but whenever Scott pushes, Chris tries to meet him. Just tries, just keeps licking and sucking, does everything that he _can_ and God, the sheer desire to just please Scott, the way he smells and hears and sees that in everything Chris does, he just can’t—he can’t resist it. He can’t.

When he comes, he ends up pulling his cock completely from Chris’ mouth. Chris whines in protest, dragging his hands along Scott’s thighs in a futile attempt to stop him, but then Scott gets his head down and buries his face in Chris’ hair, cradling Chris’ head in both hands, and Chris quiets down.

“God,” Scott says, once he gets the will to lift his head again. “God. God, if anyone comes out here right now—”

“Nobody’s here, and our phones didn’t go off,” Chris mutters.

He stays down on his knees as Scott sits back, one hand still draped over Scott’s thigh. He’s grinning, a wild, almost mad grin that Scott doesn’t ever think he’s seen on the man’s face before, and Scott just—growls again before he can help it. Looking at Chris, at his—at _his_ , and he’s wanted to say that about so few things in his life, but this one, this one, he feels like that, and he doesn’t feel bad at all about it. Doesn’t feel guilty or inappropriate or overbearing.

He just really, really wants Chris.

“Stiles did something to my phone, the alarm would’ve gone off like an emergency siren if we’d missed something,” Chris adds, starting to look a little concerned.

“Yeah, no, I know, I just…wow.” Scott shakes his head, and then leans back down. He brushes his fingers down the side of Chris’ neck as that smile comes back onto Chris’ face, and then worms them back under Chris’ collar. The blood is sticking Chris’ shirt to him, but Scott pries with his nails till he can get back at the bite mark, and then he flutters his fingers over it as Chris chews his lip and shivers. “God, I’ve never wanted to ditch patrol so much.”

Chris breathes in sharply, and then chuckles. It’s a little strained, and his eyes are very, very dark with lust. “Well, Lydia wasn’t that thrilled to be stuck with the kids all night. Maybe she’d be all right switching with us if we called.”

Scott laughs too, but he can’t stop fingering his bite on Chris. His bite. On Chris. He shudders too, and when Chris makes an inquiring, worried sound, he pulls his hand out of Chris’ shirt and then hooks it around the back of Chris’ neck. “If we go home, I’m not going to watch the kids,” he tells Chris. “I’m just going to shove you into the nearest room and push you against the wall and—God, I want to hold you there and suck you till you’re shaking, and then I want to fuck you till neither of us can stand.”

Chris shudders so hard, staring up at Scott, that he almost takes his neck out of Scott’s grip. “Jesus _Christ_ ,” he moans. “Scott, Scott, _alpha_ , please—”

And then he jerks forward. Scott grabs at him, thinking he’s gotten hit from behind, but when Scott looks down the bleachers, there’s nobody. And Chris’ back is whole, just trembling as Scott smooths his hand down it, and Chris’ face is firmly buried in Scott’ stomach as Chris shakes and whimpers, kneading insistently at Scott’s thighs with his hands.

They’re useless for patrol anyway, Scott thinks, struggling to dig out his phone and call Lydia. It’d be more irresponsible to stay, and anyway, he’s an alpha, he should act like it and take care of his beta. 

_“Well, that was half an hour longer than I thought,”_ is how Lydia greets him. _“I knew I should’ve made him wear the herringbone.”_

“What?” Scott says.

 _“Just come home,”_ Lydia sighs. _“Deaton will be over there in another ten minutes and Stiles just texted that he and Peter are getting bored and ditching soon. And if I have to answer one more question about whether a redcap beats a gremlin, I will lose my mind, Scott, I do not care how cute these children are.”_

“Yeah, yeah, okay, sounds good, see you,” Scott says. He hangs up and shoves his phone back in his pocket, and then he pulls Chris up. “Come on, we’re going h—”

Chris climbs onto his lap and kisses the hell out of him. “Yes, alpha,” he says, grinning, as he climbs off, starts yanking at his clothes and scrabbling around for his guns. “God, yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody's going to ask, so there wasn't more Stiles and Peter at prom because, between Stiles being the bad-boy cool older guy who makes everybody jealous of Peter and Peter unconsciously hitting all of former social outcast Stiles' make-it-better buttons, it was so sickeningly sweet and adorable that the words all just dissolved.
> 
> The guns in the instrument case idea is from Robert Rodriguez's _Mariachi Trilogy_ movies (my first fandom!), though Chris would have something like a trombone case to accommodate the length of the rifle barrel. Not as cool as a guitar case, but Chris is pragmatic, not trendy.


	3. Chris learns more about handling small children

“Yeah, I’m coming, just give me a—ahgod _da_ —”

Chris catches himself before he curses in front of the children, because even if he’s only been sharing space with the Hales for a couple months, Laura proudly announces each and every bad-word incident to her mother and he doesn’t need a scolding from Talia, or a disappointed look from Scott. And he does not catch himself before he falls face-first on the floor, because he’s been rotating onto kid duty for months now but Derek can ghost in like, well, an actual _ghost_.

It is genuinely uncanny, Chris thinks into the carpet, as the pain of impact spreads from his chin and chest and palms, then ripples away. The kid honestly just comes out of nowhere. And just, somehow, grabs your leg at precisely the right time to tip you like a felled tree.

“Chris?” Scott calls, walking into the room. “Chris, are you…all right…”

“Hey,” Chris grunts, levering his head up. He looks at Scott’s shins, then sighs and drags one arm under his chest to prop himself up. Meets Scott’s sympathetic eyes before nodding at the stubborn boy clinging to his left leg.

Derek’s tenacious, too. Werewolf healing or not, his head barely comes to mid-thigh on Chris, and falling with Chris must be jarring for him. But not only did he do that, when Scott comes in, Derek actually tightens his grip on Chris’ calf.

“Did you trip Chris again?” Scott sighs. “Derek, you shouldn’t—”

“He’s not supposed to go,” Derek says, frowning intently, his small head bobbing over the back of Chris’ knee. “Mom said.”

Laura bounces up, putting her hands on her hips as she stares up at Scott. “Yeah! She said not to listen to you either, you might be another alpha but _nobody_ goes out till she says. And she’s the _Hale_ alpha.”

Derek nods. “She’s better.”

Probably the only thing more miraculous than Derek’s timing is Scott’s ability to keep a straight face in front of the children, under any circumstances. He doesn’t even smell aggravated; if anything, he’s giving off a faint whiff of approval as he kneels down to look Laura in the eye. “I know she said that,” Scott says, very seriously. “She told me too, because she’s a good alpha and she wants to make sure nobody gets hurt who doesn’t have to. But I just heard from her that it was all okay, and they’ll be home…oh, you know what? I think I hear—”

Down on the first floor, a car engine rumbles into the garage. Derek and Laura cock their heads, and then, too quick for Chris to even duck his head out of the way, they scream with joy and leap over him and run down the stairs.

“You okay?” Scott says. He brushes off the small shoe print on his sleeve and then touches where Laura elbowed Chris in the jaw on her way out.

“Yeah, I think she’s still too small to count on the whole delayed-healing business,” Chris mutters. Or tries to mutter, except now Cora’s awake and she’s crying.

Scott hisses under his breath, but he still gives Chris’ jaw a light stroke before he gets up. He goes over to lift Cora out of her playpen and Chris sprawls on the floor and catches his breath. Because Scott might, impossibly, fail to see how those gestures of his are anything but just being _nice_ , but Chris feels every single one of them down to his bones.

And remembers every time that if he screws this up, it’ll be the worst mistake he’s ever made, worse even than letting that so-called best friend of his live, than letting his mother talk him into coming home after he’d been bitten. “Isn’t that Peter?” he says, pushing himself to his hands and knees.

Peter’s muffled bellow, telling Derek to not shred his jeans, drifts up before Scott can answer. Scott looks slightly guilty, bouncing a suddenly-quiet Cora. “Oh, oops, I did make it sound like it was Talia. She and Lydia are staying a little longer to set up an alibi, but she sent Peter back first because he’s got some exam tomorrow.”

“I don’t think the kids sound _unhappy_ to see him,” Chris says. He gets onto his feet, and then backs up into the hall as Scott comes out of the room with Cora. “Even Cora’s kind of—”

“Pee-taa,” Cora says, looking up at Scott. When he smiles at her, she puts her hand out, bumps his jaw, and then promptly slumps to nap against his shoulder.

Children are…still mostly a mystery to Chris, but he’s never wanted to hurt them, and spending so much time so close to three of them has just reinforced that. Like right now, Cora’s just such a small, fragile thing in Scott’s arms, her tousled hair dark against his neck, and Chris just—don’t know how people do it, honestly. Doesn’t know how they trust enough to ever take that risk, bring something like that into the world.

“Yeah, true, I guess that’s pack for you,” Scott says, still smiling at Cora. “Even when they’re taking you down for your own good.”

Chris hums in acknowledgement, not thinking, and then he looks up sharply. He and Talia have talked, and he’s set to stay indefinitely, so long as he keeps protecting her family, but she’s not his alpha. They both know that, and…that probably should get worked out in specifics, but he doesn’t know if she and Scott have talked it over and he doesn’t know if he can raise it before that. His family has handed down a lot of knowledge, but none of it covers this specific situation.

“Well, Talia said, all pack stays in till the coast is clear,” Scott says. He’s not smiling anymore; Chris must smell nervy or something like that. He shifts slightly towards Chris, a subvocal rumble weaving into his voice, reassuring in a very lowkey way. “The kids like you, anyway. They think you’re a better bedtime story reader than me.”

“They think you’re better at pretty much everything else,” Chris points out, but he can feel the tension slipping from his shoulders and back. “I don’t know how much them liking me matters.”

Scott tilts his head slightly, signaling polite confusion. Then he walks past Chris towards the stairs, slowing so Chris can belatedly fall in after him. “I don’t think any of us are that traditional, and anyway, we’re not just wolves, we’re werewolves,” he says. Softly, casually, without accusation. “So them liking you—”

“It’s not that I mind it,” Chris says hurriedly. He rubs at the side of his face, sneaking a peek at Scott, and just finds the man looking attentively at him. He ducks his head at that, ashamed of himself, and then hooks his hands into his jeans pockets. “It’s…it’s…it’s different, I guess. It’s…not bad, just…not what I’m used to.”

They hit the first floor, and then run into Stiles and Peter coming the other way. Laura is tagging along at Peter’s heels, asking about all the funny smells he’s got on him, while Derek is in Stiles’ arms, examining the back cover of a book that Peter is holding up for him. “Hey, the trash—” Stiles starts.

“Yeah, we know, we were going to get it, I just lost track with getting the kids to take a bath and remembered just now,” Scott says. He jiggles Cora till Peter sighs and holds his hands up for her, and then hands her over and steers Chris towards the basement door. “You want to grab Stiles’ bag from the basement, while I empty out the kitchen wastebasket?”

“Sure,” Chris says.

Scott smiles at him and Chris stands there dumbly for a few seconds, till the other man’s nearly out of the hall. Then he shakes himself and opens the basement door. Stops, shakes himself again, and then braces himself for Stiles’ trash, which is…well, if he’s lucky, it’ll just be unnatural colors.

Trash and babysitting, he thinks. The things his family’s lore left out, but now that he’s living it…this is what it is, most of the time. And no, it’s not bad. Not at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Idea originally from [this comment by Just_Write](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7048204/comments/64280176).


	4. Talia and Lydia and a short history of kisses

The first time Talia kissed Lydia, which she does think counts, she’d just killed her ex while he was inhabiting the body of her murderous uncle. It was a quick thank-you peck on the cheek, just something when words alone didn’t seem enough. If Lydia had been a werewolf, Talia could’ve gotten the point across by mutual scenting, but Lydia’s not one and Talia isn’t so naïve as to assume that Lydia’s adopted werewolf mannerisms simply because she keeps company with them.

The first time Talia kisses Lydia on the _mouth_ , technically, although she doesn’t think it should count, she’s in the middle of resuscitating the other woman after they’ve handled a rogue swim coach who’s been resorting to kanimas and murder to ensure his team gets the state championship title. There’s some kind of past-timeline issue that’s been throwing Lydia off her game, and neither she nor Stiles nor Scott will say much past that they’re glad the coach’s ex-wife got a divorce before their son was born. It’s made her far more aggravating than usual, and the moment her eyes open, Talia can’t help but yell at her like…like Talia’s _father_ , honestly, dressing down a misbehaving pack member on a hunt.

Between Lydia’s predictably negative reaction and the soul-searching stint that sends Talia into, it’s a good couple months before Talia can talk to the woman without feeling as if every one of Lydia’s words is covered in ice, acid, or poison. And by then it’s time for Peter to start college, and even if he’s commuting from home instead of staying in a dorm—and Stiles has managed to shanghai himself a job with the university—Talia still can’t help but fret.

She keeps a lid on it. Peter wants to go and she thinks it’s important for him to get a taste of life outside of Beacon Hills, like she did when she moved away with Mark. But it’s hard, and Talia has to admit, a big part of her reconciliation with Lydia is because she’s so desperate for a distraction that she’s willing to be pushy and annoy the other woman into spending time with her.

Lydia is surprisingly accommodating about the whole thing. Well, she makes a few pointed comments, but then she takes Talia shopping. Which is a strange experience, and not only because with three small children, Talia’s nearly forgotten what it’s like to wear clothes that can’t stand up to little chubby claw-tipped fingers and baby food stains and being hastily tossed into a load of the wrong color laundry because she’s so tired even werewolf sight doesn’t tell her what’s lights and what’s darks.

It’s the fact that Lydia is…honestly, she’s a little nerdy about fashion. Not in her picks, which are always stellar, but in how she keeps pushing two choices at a time at Talia, muttering that the right one is trendy now but the left one will appreciate much better in three to five years. It’s the same way that Scott talks about supernatural politics, or Stiles about pretty much anything. Lydia’s normally much better about keeping her past experiences under a tight lid, but here she is, providing commentary on future fashion trends.

“I can always stop,” Lydia says, noticing Talia’s smile. “If you’d rather be spoiler-free, I’m happy to leave you in the dark and keep my soon-to-be vintage collection to myself.”

“I’m not laughing at you,” Talia says, amused. Then she steps back from the mirror in the changing room and looks over, and just catches the stiff, slightly more than annoyed way that Lydia is hanging a blouse on the hook. “Why do you always think people are laughing at you?”

When Lydia turns, her mask is perfect, not a hair out of place, those brows in an elegantly sarcastic arch. “Do you, of all people, really have to ask that?”

Talia smiles again, but it’s smaller, wryer. No, she thinks. And—yes, she also thinks. Because she can acknowledge how difficult the world is on women like them without succumbing to it.

“I’m not laughing at you,” she says again.

Lydia’s brows rise a little higher. “Are you really going to claim you’re laughing with me?”

“That’d need you to at least smell amused,” Talia says, leaning in and whiffing at the woman.

Her eyes drop as she does so and land on the soft white slope of Lydia’s breast. They drift to the woman’s neckline, then come back up as Talia realizes she’s just a little over the line of teasing. And they meet Lydia’s eyes, and Talia stops right there.

Lydia doesn’t, and so that’s the first time that Lydia kisses her. And of course, since it’s Lydia, the intent is firmly, devastatingly unmistakable. It knocks Talia’s knees right out from under her, alpha werewolf and all, and she’s the one who ends up grabbing onto the nearest wall hook for support.

She’s also the one who accidentally wrecks the damn cubicle, bringing the store security down on them. Which results in a very short, very embarrassing interview with the manager, even though Talia promptly cuts a generous check out of her family inheritance and Lydia deftly persuades them to just report it as a freak accident, and also, to destroy all the security-camera footage rather than find out what Lydia does when she’s _not_ smiling sweetly. And then they have to leave.

Three hours later, after they’ve gone home and Talia’s unpacked her new clothes and also fended off Peter’s questions—he can always tell when she’s humiliated herself, which is his God-given right as her little brother, according to him—she goes into the backyard and finds Lydia doing some weeding in the container garden.

“I wasn’t laughing at you,” Talia says to the back of her head. “I was laughing at me.”

Lydia stands up. She has a little greenish stain on her palms and fingertips, which looks just as incongruous against her still-pristine outfit as the slight sheen of sweat at the edge of her sleek hair. “You?” she says.

“Yes, me, because I’ve been thinking you were waiting for me to…to grow up, or something like that,” Talia says, and then she kisses her. Kisses her because she means to kiss her, putting hands on Lydia’s waist, then shoulders as Lydia grabs her hips and pulls her into the middle of the herb pots.

“Don’t be ridiculous, do I look like Stiles?” Lydia mutters when they break for breath.

Talia laughs again, and then rubs her nose along the side of Lydia’s face, taking in the woman’s scent, before kissing her, short and sweetly hot. “Well, you’re insulting my brother, aren’t you?”

“ _You’re_ old enough to know better than that,” Lydia sniffs. Her hands slide up Talia’s sides and then angle under Talia’s breasts, and then, even though Talia has height and weight on her, she somehow tugs so that Talia’s off-balance, falling into the next kiss. “And I’m—” she slides her mouth away, tips their brows together, drops her voice to low and almost raw “—I’ve done enough waiting in my life.”

“Good,” Talia breathes, right into her mouth, a beat before their lips meet again.

So the second time Talia kisses Lydia, that’s when they both finally mean it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Talia and Lydia didn't get much past UST in the main story, but it just didn't feel very true to either of their characterizations, since they were both concentrating on solving more urgent problems and wouldn't have taken the time to deal with what they would've seen as a minor, non-emergency personal issue. Which was very frustrating, believe me, but learning to edit is mostly about learning to rein in those author indulgences when they'd wreak the story structure and undermine characterization.
> 
> But yeah, I wanted them to have their moment, too.


	5. Scott's nightmares and Chris

“It’s not, you know, you,” Stiles says, handing Chris two mugs. One has coffee, the other hot chocolate with four jumbo marshmallows squished into it. “It usually doesn’t have anything to do with what’s going on, either. It’s just cycles, sometimes it just happens.”

Chris makes a noncommittal noise, and then ignores the irritated look that Peter is shooting him from Stiles’ elbow. No, he’s not really satisfied with what Stiles is saying, but it’s not like he’s squaring up to the man or anything like that. And even if he was, it’s not like Peter would be the one Chris needs to pay attention to.

“Anyway, just tell…oh, wait, almost forgot.” Stiles reaches back to the counter and grabs the syringe case he set there while getting out the marshmallows. “So don’t get all stiff-necked about it, okay? It’s just in case.”

“I’m not,” Chris says. 

He and Stiles look at each other, and then he looks down at his hands, each of which is occupied by a mug. Then he looks back up and Stiles rolls his eyes and starts to reach for a mug. Chris jerks it away and Stiles narrows his eyes.

“I’m not,” Chris says, before either of the other two can chime in. “Look, he’s awake now, and I don’t think he’s going to be going back to sleep any time soon. And it’s not—”

“It’d better not be all that ‘I heal’ bullshit, because sure, you do, and while you’re doing that, you also look kind of like an abuse victim, and sure, _that’s_ going to help Scott,” Stiles says, his eyes pointedly tracking from the thick bandage covering Chris’ left shoulder to the one on his right forearm, and last, to the scratches over Chris’ ribs, shiny with skin-glue.

“I know, and I’m not trying to be—I just…I don’t want to end up fighting him, all right?” Chris mutters. “I don’t want to make it worse for him, that’s the point.”

Stiles blinks a few times, and then gets it. “Seriously? You never shot up anybody? Used a dart gun?”

“A dart gun’s not the same as trying to find a vein at point-blank range,” Chris snaps. He hears Peter’s foot scuff as Peter edges closer, going from flanking Stiles to just short of challenging, but does his best to bite down on his instinct to react to that and just keeps his eyes on Stiles. “And no, okay, Argents are old-fashioned, Code was as much about a fair hunt as about—about trying to be fair, period. It said no drugging, so we didn’t.”

“Okay, fine,” Stiles says. He flips the case on end and holds it up, and then, when Chris jerks his arms towards himself, he slowly and carefully reaches over and tucks it in between Chris’ arm and chest. “Then just have Scott do it, he knows how. Might as well make him get a little sleep while we’re at it.”

Chris opens his mouth, and then decides better to just shut up now and see if he can get away without making any commitments. He doesn’t have much hope of it, but it’s late and Stiles is coming off a busy week and maybe it’s just one of those times where Stiles figures everybody will do what he says just because he’s seen it all before.

Anyway, Stiles just mutters a little more about Scott’s insomnia and then turns on his heel to go back down to the basement, where he’s been working on designing the protection magic for the new house Talia is having built. He doesn’t stop, but Peter lingers a little longer, eyeing Chris suspiciously.

Well, he can do that as much as he likes. Chris promised his sister that he’d protect Peter with the rest of the Hales, but he didn’t promise—and Talia’s sensible enough to not ask for—that he’d be somebody Peter likes. “You going to make a scene?” Chris asks.

And only because Peter’s between him and the stairs to the second floor, but Peter snorts and moves aside with a grand sweeping gesture of one arm. “You’re not going to give him that, are you,” he says, just as Chris starts to take a step. “I bet you’re not even going to tell him you have it.”

Chris finishes that step, telling himself to just ignore it, and then—turns anyway. He might be a little short-tempered and tired himself. “What the hell do you—”

“Oh, honestly, Scott claws you in his sleep and you think you’re suddenly an expert on them?” Peter says. His tone is exasperated but he looks and smells tired more than anything else; he rakes one hand back through his hair, then gives Chris a disappointed look that’s a lot more like his sister than like his usual brattiness. “Look, don’t take this as anything but me not wanting you to have the kids screaming again, but maybe knowing he’s got that shot is going to make Scott feel safer than anything you could say?”

“And you’d know,” Chris says. He’s skeptical, and he thinks he has a right to be, since Peter barely speaks to Scott, and then usually it’s about Stiles.

“Well, it’s not like Scott’s the only one,” Peter says. He pauses, looking a little…ashamed, though even Chris would say Peter hasn’t given away any secrets. Then he shakes his head and stalks past Chris towards the basement. “Look, do whatever you want, but you’re just an idiot if you think you know what’s the best way to protect them. _They_ don’t even know that.”

Chris snorts and continues onto the stairs, but he—does turn that over in his head a few times. Maybe because he’s tired, and his injuries ache, and he’s still…he starts a little, halfway into the bedroom, and then tries to smile over it.

Scott isn’t fooled. “I should just hit the couch,” he mutters. The bedsheets are all changed and there’s no sign anything happened, but Scott’s folded up in the same dejected position Chris left him in. “Look, it’s not you, it’s just I really don’t know what I’m doing and I just don’t want to wake up again and—”

“I’ve got,” Chris says without thinking. Just reacting, cringing himself at the way his alpha’s so low, smelling low, holding himself low. And then Scott looks up and Chris freezes.

The case is still sticking out over Chris’ arm anyway. Chris was so busy thinking that he didn’t bother to hide it, and Scott’s eyes go to it, and his scent floods with relief even before his shoulders drop. And Chris is—a fucking mess, charitably speaking, but even he can see that that’s not how it should be. It’s not _right_ , that the idea of giving up his powers, even for a little bit, seems like a solution to an alpha as strong and normally well-controlled as Scott.

But the thing is, Scott does relax, and if he stays relaxed, he might get some sleep, which both he and Stiles say is the most reliable cure for his nightmares. And it’s not right but a lot of things aren’t right, and sometimes life is just about trying to make things work. Chris was old enough to understand that even before a werewolf bite upended his entire world.

“Stiles said if you thought you needed it,” Chris finally says, slow and quiet.

He can’t bring himself to take another step, but he holds still as Scott uncoils himself and comes over, and takes the case from him. Then Scott bends over, dropping the case on the nightstand, and Chris moves past him with the mugs. Chris is being a hypocrite but he doesn’t want to see, so he gets onto the bed and drinks his coffee and holds onto Scott’s hot chocolate till Scott crawls over next to him.

“The big ones,” Scott says, a smile ghosting over his face. He looks into his mug, and then looks over it at Chris. “I know it…what it looks like, but it’s just—I can’t get to sleep if I think I’m going to wake up with my claws in somebody. And I know you’re going to say I didn’t do it on purpose, but it—”

“You didn’t.” Chris drains the last of his coffee and then stretches over to put his mug on the nightstand, and then he stays down, rolling onto his belly as he looks up at Scott. The scratches over his ribs sting a little but he ignores them. “Just don’t go down to the living room. I just…I don’t sleep much either, when I’m on my own. I’m just—I’m really used to you now.”

Scott winces and Chris regrets saying that, and then Scott gives him a half-smile, reaching out to run two fingers down the side of Chris’ face. And that touch, slight as it is, that’s enough to make Chris take back his regret, and decide it was worth it. His uneasiness with the drug, it’s worth it.

Anyway, he realizes, looking up at the other man, drug or no drug, Scott’s still his alpha. He doesn’t need to see red eyes all the time to know that.

“We should both try and get some rest,” Scott says. His fingers drift lower, till they’re almost touching Chris’ shoulder. Then his lips tighten and his hand twitches back—but he moves it forward before Chris can react, resting his fingers lightly on the bandage before moving them to Chris’ neck.

He gently urges Chris’ head down, so Chris shifts off his scratched side and then kicks his feet under the blankets. Curls up between Scott’s legs as Scott stretches out one leg, keeps the other bent so he can use the knee to prop up his chin. Scott’s fingers slide along Chris’ neck again, soothing, here-claim-steady, and then he starts stroking Chris’ hair as Chris closes his eyes. The scent of hot chocolate and melting marshmallow swirls down as he sips at his mug, and under that, the smell of relief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this version of Scott (and Stiles and Lydia) would all be the type to have a very rough time coming down after the villain is defeated and the danger is gone and everybody is safe. So Scott doesn't have nightmares during the course of the main story, but once Mark's dead, he has a couple bad episodes.


	6. Flash-forward: Stiles and Peter, with Laura and Derek cameos

“Peter!” Derek yells, storming down the basement stairs. “Peter! Peter, damn it, I know you’re down there, the privacy wards aren’t up!”

“And even if they were, that’d just really tell us you’re there,” Laura chimes in.

Peter grumbles and shoves his face under the blanket, and more firmly into Stiles’ collarbone. “Why didn’t you put them up?”

“Because I would have to stop working on this to do that, and you could put them up yourself, you’re just lazy,” Stiles says, swiping at his tablet.

He has to raise his knee to prop that up as Peter makes another aggrieved noise and curls more tightly against him, tenting the blanket up over his head so that Stiles has to push the edge out of the way with his chin. And then he sighs and just saves where he is, since Derek and Laura have stomped in front of them.

“Derek is an asshole,” Laura says.

“Laura’s being a bigger one,” Derek says.

Peter sighs, and does not lift his head. “And just what do you want me to do about it?” his hair says to them.

Derek’s eyes widen a little, so shocked that his uncle isn’t just rolling over and springing into action. He’s way past the cute kid stage, and in fact, pretty much looks like the Derek Stiles originally knew—though with a lot less angst, and a lot more straight-up grouch—so his expression is even more hilarious.

“Hey, it’s a fair question,” Stiles says. “Peter’s not a miracle-worker, you know, laws of nature are laws of nature.”

Laura narrows her eyes. “And you, you’re even worse than our actual uncle.”

Peter snarls. A little blue glow leaks from the blanket, and while Stiles is totally giving his mate a nice arm around the back and a quick ass-grope as thanks for the strong defense, he is also snickering. Because when Peter does that, sure, he sounds intimidating, to the point that both his niece and nephew twitch, but he just looks so much like one of those glowy cuddle-toys they used to pile into Cora’s crib.

“Oh, come on, Peter,” Laura says after a moment, though she’s a lot less strident. “You know we know Stiles is pack. I mean, even if he hadn’t stuck a ring on it and sentenced us for life to your weird kiss-and-terror rituals, I am permanently scarred from that time I walked in on you two after your prom.”

“Damn it, Scott,” Peter mutters, as he does every single time somebody brings that up.

Stiles sighs, like he does every single time. “Actually—”

“Fine, damn it, Chris and his ridiculous kink for his alpha’s babysitting prowess,” Peter corrects. The blanket shifts and he grudgingly pokes his head out. “Stop being assholes to each other, your mother is busy telling off Great-Aunt Ofelia for the umpteenth time and Lydia will have you locked up for days before she notices.”

Laura rolls her eyes. Derek crosses his arms over his chest and scowls.

“Also, Derek, if Paige says she can’t deal with you being a werewolf but then starts dating a were-cat, then she has issues you don’t need to be sorting through. And Laura, perhaps you should try an approach to comforting your brother that doesn’t involve cat-lover jokes,” Peter mutters. “Derek’s not Stiles, he’ll just take that as you siding with her.”

“What?” Laura says, half in outrage, half in shock. She looks at Derek, who raises his brows, all, why else am I mad at you? “Are you kidding me? She’s a hypocritical bitch!”

Derek opens his mouth, then shuts it and looks confused because he’s expecting an argument and slowly realizing that that isn’t what this is.

Peter shoves his head back under the blanket. “Now go _away_. I am _comfortable_.”

“You sure you don’t appreciate a cat-lover joke?” Stiles says, as Derek and Laura retreat up the stairs, still bickering. He flicks up the edge of the blanket and peers in at Peter, who grumbles and hikes his knees into Stiles’ hip, and then, when Stiles smacks him, hauls his leg up over Stiles’ thigh so he can twist and try harder to flatten Stiles. “Oof, okay, come on, this was cute when you didn’t outweigh me by fifteen pounds, but now I’d like my chest to not be caved in.”

“Says somebody who showered me with expensive v-neck cardigans the semester I came home with the predicted ‘man-cleavage,’ as you put it,” Peter mutters, just nosing deeper into Stiles’ shoulder.

Stiles puts his head back against the couch, sighs for the nostalgia and for the current ridiculousness, and then sets his tablet aside. He lifts his freed-up hand, cracks a few knuckles, and then jabs the heel of his foot into the couch’s built-in footstool, grabs Peter with both hands, and flips them.

Peter’s got more meat on his bones these days, but that doesn’t mean Stiles still doesn’t know how to handle him. Or, frankly, to handle those nice, firm, if annoyingly heavy, layers of muscle.

“Damn it, Stiles,” Peter says, already breathless. He puts up a token struggle as Stiles laves and sucks down the side of his neck, mostly so that he can get Stiles’ belt off, and then he sprawls out as Stiles peels up his shirt and unapologetically palms all over his pecs, teasing fingertips down his breastbone and then plucking at his nipples. Peter moans and lets his hands slip to grab at the blanket twisted around them, chin jerking insistently upward, pressing his throat into Stiles’ mouth. “I _was_ comfortable.”

“So shut up ‘n be comfy,” Stiles mumbles, mouthing his way along Peter’s shoulder. He bites down hard, enough so that Peter’s voice drops briefly into a whine, and then nuzzles his way to where he’s got a nipple peaking between his pinching finger and thumb. “Lie back and lemme feel you up, lick all over your goddamn man-cleavage and little candy nips, God, I’m so glad you didn’t grow out of those. Still just like fucking bonbons.”

Peter twists and gasps, his head going over to the side as Stiles sucks one nipple, then the other till they’re shiny as good ganache. His hips are jerking frantically under Stiles, he’s already too far gone to even try and rub off against Stiles’ stomach—but not too far gone to get in a complaint. “Well, your—your pillowtalk’s not any—any more—”

“You love my dirty talk and you know it,” Stiles snorts. Leaving off the nipples to shove his hand down into the front of Peter’s pants.

He lifts up with Peter’s buck, and then drags himself over the other man, craning his head so he can nip Peter right over the Adam’s apple. Pushes his other hand into Peter’s pants, catching the man’s cock between his palms and squeezing just a little, just so that Peter’s throat vibrates a whimper against his teeth, and then he moves his hands out to Peter’s hips. Still in the pants, catching the fabric—thankfully, easygoing cotton with a drawstring waist—over his knuckles and then slipping it down Peter’s legs.

Peter gives up on the insults and goes instead for the gut attack. Pressing himself down as Stiles hikes up to shove both their pants out of the way, laid out like a platter of goodies, with the half-open, panting mouth all red like berries, the sweat slicking him over like icing on velvet-smooth muscles Stiles wants to bite into like so much cake. And he knows what he looks like, he’s got that glint under the glaze of lust over his eyes. He doesn’t blush so much anymore, has caught up with Stiles’ appreciation for him.

But he still does that shiver every time Stiles puts hands on him. That slight, shocked shiver, like deep down a part of him still can’t believe it when Stiles grabs his thighs, squeezes up them to the buttocks that are, impossibly, rounder and tauter than when he was a wary teenager sidling his way into Stiles’ heart. And when Stiles stretches up and kisses him, Peter still hikes his ass in Stiles’ hands, just like he did when he was an inch shorter, like he’s getting himself comfortable in Stiles’ grip all over again.

Like Stiles couldn’t sculpt that ass in the dark by now, but Stiles tries not to question a good thing the first time it comes his way, let alone the umpteenth time. Which, if he’s going to be honest with himself, is the equivalent of Peter’s little shiver. He doesn’t question, but man, does he think that if they’d just given up on the timeline before this one, if they’d just looked at each other and said fuck it, it’s too much, they’re too tired, they just couldn’t do one more—

He thinks that, and then Peter puts his hands up around Stiles’ face and kisses him like that, like love and happiness and all the good things rolled together, and Stiles stops thinking. Just…just buries himself in the other man, buries himself good and deep. Buries his fingers and then his cock, gets himself as deep as he can in Peter, deep enough so that they’re both shaking from it, and then folds Peter up around him. Heaves Peter’s legs up till Peter, weak and trembling, hooks his ankles over each other even though he’s barely able to breathe, but he does it, he does it for Stiles. And then Stiles, he twists their fingers together and drags their hands over Peter’s head, and holds them there while he takes Peter from both ends.

His mouth sealed over Peter’s mouth, his cock splitting Peter a little more with every thrust and he can taste that, taste the way Peter’s falling apart around him, but he doesn’t stop. He doesn’t stop when Peter’s struggling to cry out against the tight press of their mouths, when Peter’s cock is smearing come haphazardly between them. Doesn’t stop when Peter’s gone quiet and slack, just the occasional tremor sliding him against Stiles. 

Doesn’t stop till he’s come apart too, panting and limp on top of the other man, staring dazedly at the sweat rolling off Peter’s shoulder while Peter nudges at the top of his head, small, broken purrs dribbling through his hair. 

“Man,” Stiles grunts. He sucks in a breath and loosens their hands, and then drags his fingers into Peter’s curls till the matted, wet strands snarl them too much to be worth fighting. “Man.”

He can’t say anything else. There are a thousand things he could say—he’d like to say, he thinks that he owes to Peter to say—but he just…he can’t. He just feels too good, he just can’t see how words can even hold how good he feels.

“Mmm,” Peter says, nuzzling at Stiles again. He purrs a little louder, till Stiles lifts his head, and then he laps at the sweat coming off Stiles’ jaw. So Stiles turns his head, gives Peter a better angle, and Peter makes happy, obscene noises like they haven’t just fucked themselves silly. “Mmmm, yes, stay like that.”

“’m gonna get a crick this way,” Stiles says, moving his fingers in slow, small circles where Peter’s hair has trapped them.

Peter shifts his head a little, just enough to look up at Stiles with limpid, innocently wanting eyes. “But I’m comfortable,” he says.

“God, you’re such an asshole,” Stiles says, laughing. He moves, just so he can get his arm propped so he can support his neck on his other hand, and then moves his head back while Peter is still mid-protest. Then he twists down and licks a little sweat from Peter’s nose. “Lucky you’re adorable, too.”

Peter still hates that word. Call him handsome, or charming, or endearing or lovable or anything else and he’ll not only love it, he’ll squeeze at least a couple alibis and maybe a concession or two out of it. But ‘adorable’ rankles his manly pride or something, makes his nose and mouth twitch towards a grimace every time.

“Stiles,” he says reprovingly.

“Totes adorbs, even without the tight little teenage butt,” Stiles says, grinning down at him.

Rolling his eyes, Peter sighs into a long-suffering expression—and then suddenly tightens his legs around Stiles, making his ass flex down on the cock still stuffed into it. Stiles grabs at him, then groans, and it’s Peter’s turn to laugh.

“Well, I don’t think you can miss that butt so much, seeing how fond you are of this one,” Peter says, smirking up at him. “I think there’s something to be said for maturity.”

“Oh, hey, I wasn’t throwing shade or anything,” Stiles says. He shifts his knees around, getting himself braced again, and then tugs his hand free of Peter’s hair and moves it and its partner down to re-grip said butt. “On the contrary, I’ve enjoyed watching that view improve every single year. And making sure everything still fits, you know, gotta check that often.”

Peter hisses a little, humping at Stiles’ palms, but still manages to narrow his eyes. “You’re still ridiculous, and insufferable, and I still don’t know why I find that so—so—”

“Adorable?” Stiles suggests.

Peter growls at him, and then yanks Stiles down by the shoulder to start up another round of kissing. Not that it takes too long for Stiles to get him purring again, and okay, so Laura maybe has a point about the insanely disgusting levels of affection going on here, on both ends. But Stiles honestly doesn’t give a damn. He and his friends, they’ve gone through literal worlds to get here, and not that they are, none of them have any intention of leaving any time soon.

When you find something good, you stay with it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laura's college-age, Derek is finishing up high school.
> 
> This was the original planned epilogue, but I decided it skipped a little too far ahead, with where everybody was at the end of the main story.


	7. Flash-forward: Laura and Derek and Cora talk uncles

“Well, honestly, who marries their high school sweetheart and then stays with them for the rest of their lives?” Cora says, throwing up her hands.

Her older siblings look grim (Derek) and darkly amused (Laura). “Peter,” Derek mutters.

Cora opens her mouth. Then shuts it. Then opens it. “Well, okay, but—”

“Actually, I’m about ninety percent sure that Uncle Stiles was his first, too,” Laura says. “Family reunion about four years ago, Cousin Tyler was giving his sister shit about insisting on waiting for true love, when everybody was sipping Stiles’ holiday moonshine, and somehow that ended up with him and Peter brawling in the backyard while yelling about Stiles.”

“Yeah, I remember that,” Cora’s mouth says, on autopilot. She rubs at her face, attempts to sort through the zillion thoughts that are suddenly in her head, and then looks at Laura. “So. Uncle Peter. Who when he found your vibrator, informed you it had a recall order out and if you weren’t making enough to upgrade to a decent model, you needed to get a backbone and ask your boss for a raise—”

“Yep,” Laura says.

“Uncle Peter who told you that nobody cared if you were exploring your options before you figured out how to label yourself, but that alcohol-fueled threesomes weren’t worth the morning-after arguments, and certainly weren’t going to get him to bail you out on a public indecency charge,” Cora says.

Derek has his face in his palm before she’s even halfway through that. “Yeah.”

“That uncle. That uncle, that one, has literally slept with just one person his entire life,” Cora says.

“That one person is _Uncle Stiles_ ,” Laura reminds her.

They all wince. Stare at each other for a little bit. And then Cora heaves a sigh and wonders, yet again, why her family has to be so…them. “I can’t decide whether this means I should just keep on having casual flings, or wait around for my one and only so we can mutate into a terrifying two-bodied one-mind evil monster.”

“I know, right?” Laura says. 

Derek just grunts and sprawls backward on the couch to stare at the ceiling. “Cora, just dump him,” he mutters. “Lydia doesn’t like him, and if we’re having this discussion, you don’t like him enough to go up against her.”

“This is true,” Cora says after a moment. And then she jabs a finger at Laura. “And _no_ , I have made up my mind, and also, been scarred plenty today. I do not need to know whatever about Lydia and Mom, all right? No. No. Take your alpha knowledge and stuff it.”

“Fine,” Laura says, all airy like she isn’t secretly disappointed. “But you’re going to regret it at the next reunion.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Cora says, getting up. “Or just make sure I’m on our uncles’ good sides by then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is it a running family joke that Peter, of all people, managed to land the classic American romantic dream? Oh, yes. Does Peter smirk at the rest of them for not being nearly as efficient and clever as he is? Of course. Do he and Talia get into arguments about which of them got the better time-traveler? If they were that stupid and shallow, neither of them would have landed one in the first place.
> 
> Also, Lydia is and has always been Lydia to them. Not Aunt, not Mom or Second Mommy, or God forbid, Lyds (only Stiles gets to call her that). Lydia. And she will take you out if you mess with them.
> 
> Seriously, the kids are way better-adjusted (and alive, in Laura's case) in this universe, but can you imagine growing up with Peter and Stiles (or Talia and Lydia, or if you're of the gothic romance persuasion, Scott and Chris) to live up to? Talk about unintentionally intimidating.


	8. Lydia's version of courtship includes torture

“Talia, be realistic,” says the other alpha. “You have three young children and everyone still knows the rest of your family hasn’t fully accepted you as alpha. And on top of that, if you’re seriously choosing to bed another woman who’s not even a were…do you just want to think about the impression that gives other packs? Other alphas?”

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it. It’s difficult not to, what with how every unattached male alpha with expansion cravings has mentioned it in the past few months,” Talia says dryly.

He puffs up in satisfaction. “Well, that’s just proving my point. So seriously, I think you need to just sit down and think about what’s best for your pack and—”

“Sorry I’m late, Stiles fried another hairdryer,” Lydia says, walking into the backroom of Deaton’s clinic. She pauses and looks between them with wide, innocently unsuspecting eyes. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing you need to know about it,” the alpha says dismissively.

Lydia looks at him. He’s already turned back to Talia, slipping back into charm mode, and Talia stifles a sigh and gets ready to ruin yet another outfit. Usually for these meetings, she changes into one of her wraps, but this asshole just had to catch her at the supermarket, and she barely managed to talk him into at least going to the clinic rather than having it out in the parking lot, as if plausible deniability isn’t important for all of them in giving people reasons to ignore what’s right in front of their face.

“As I was saying before your pet interrupted us,” he says.

And then he’s on the floor, writhing. His head bangs into the leg of one of Deaton’s rolling tables, sending it off towards the wall, and then he jerks over onto his back just as Lydia steps over him. She fires her stungun a second time, putting the new set of prongs just below his collarbone, and then tucks that back into her purse as he falls into a fresh set of spasms, occasionally side-stepping a flailing limb. Lydia leans back and studies him, eyes flicking from body part to body part, before diving down with a quickness that makes Talia’s breath catch.

When Lydia comes back up, she’s got the man by the hair. She steps back over him, then drags him two steps towards the table that’s bolted to the floor. Takes out a pair of handcuffs, snaps one cuff to his wrist and the other to the table leg, and then lifts one foot to take off her shoe. She puts her purse on the table and then takes a small knife from it, which she uses to scrape at the leather covering on the stiletto heel till a corner starts to come off.

Once that’s started, she puts the knife away and uses her nails to strip off the rest of the leather, exposing the wood underneath. She gets a good grip on the middle of the shoe and then bends back down and, with a short, firm movement, stabs the heel into the man’s thigh.

He screams and grabs at it with his free hand, and between his fingers a little bit of black fluid comes out—the heel’s made of mountain ash, Talia suddenly realizes. Nose wrinkled, Lydia releases the heel and allows the man to take it with him as he rolls over, twisting in agony. Then she braces herself with one hand on the table and plants her other shoe on the back of the man’s neck.

“The _only_ reason your head isn’t exploding like a rotten fruit at a shooting range,” she says sweetly, leaning all her weight on his neck. “Is because you’re doing a decent job dealing with the Calavera family. So keep that up and I will never, ever have to visit your home range. Is that understood?”

He snarls at her. Lydia rolls her eyes and presses harder with her foot, till his snarl goes choked and then suddenly breaks. She watches him, grinding her shoe a little, and then takes her foot off. She picks up a jar of mountain ash powder from the countertop and draws a circle around the man, then takes off that second shoe and walks barefoot out of the room.

“Next time, you should call me before you get to the clinic,” Lydia says, digging around in the shelves of Deaton’s supply room. She moves aside some boxes of syringes and then pulls out a shoebox with a replacement, virtually identical pair of heels. Then she puts that down on the counter and turns around. “And don’t tell me you were in public, I told you that we—”

Talia kisses her hard and deep. Lets all of Lydia’s annoyance focus on that, the woman’s hands going up to grab at Talia’s shoulders, so that Talia can catch her by surprise with the hands under her skirt and cupping her thighs and heaving her up onto the counter. And then, before Lydia can react to that, Talia ducks down and flips up Lydia’s skirt and starts licking as soon as her mouth touches something.

She does that before she takes off Lydia’s underwear, and by then it’s so wet that she’s almost tempted to cut it off with her claws. She doesn’t do that, but she does snarl in irritation, snarl and rub that snarl right into Lydia’s clit, feeling it swell back against her tongue and teeth, and Lydia gasps for her. It’s a rough, half-uncontrolled noise, that gasp, but the rest of the woman, it’s still so intoxicatingly poised. There’s deliberateness in the way that Lydia locks her legs around Talia’s head, right after Talia sucks in her breath, in how she digs her hands inch by inch through Talia’s hair, working them down the scalp in time with Talia’s fast, hard sucks at her clit. 

And then, once Talia’s licked her to her one moan, so close to ragged and yet not that Talia just has to jam her knuckles up against her own cunt to feel release quiver through her gut and thighs like molten fire—once that’s happened, Lydia leans back, bracing her elbows against the wall, and pants twice and then looks at Talia with narrowed eyes. “We bribe the local cops precisely so that we can call in fake emergencies whenever we need to stall,” she finishes.

Talia doesn’t straighten up, but does move her hands to either side of Lydia’s hips so when she bends over, her mouth sways near Lydia’s. Her lips are still covered in the other woman’s juices and she can see Lydia’s pupils expand, can smell the fresh spike in arousal, whatever Lydia’s attitude is. “Sorry,” Talia says. “I’ll keep that in mind for the next one.”

Lydia’s tongue flicks out over her lower lip as their eyes meet and the world just—shimmers, hazy and hot, between them. And then Lydia snorts. “Next one. That’s your goal, of course, when we should really be cutting them off at the—”

They really should. But also, they really should kiss right then, so Talia does, and Lydia…well, she allows it. And it’s just perfect that way, it really is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obviously Lydia has replacement shoes in several colors in Deaton's clinic.


	9. Scott and Chris and kink compromises are hot, actually

“ _Fuck_ , yes, fuck, fuck, please, _please_ ,” Chris pants, clawing at the bed. He drags himself up almost to the headboard, as if he’s going to grab onto that, and then his spine arches with a liquid grace that’s so mesmerizing Scott almost misses the urgency in it.

That comes to the forefront as Chris slams himself back against Scott, taking in Scott’s cock so far that they both freeze, barely breathing. Scott’s trembling and he can _feel_ the way that Chris is unraveling underneath him, feel it like a hand deep in his gut that just keeps twisting and twisting, pulling them so tightly together that for a dizzying second he thinks they might just be a single overheated, overstretched body.

And then he can’t hold it anymore, and a snarl bursts out of him, so vicious that his head snaps forward like somebody’s slapped it that way. His claws come out and a tiny, dazed part of him points out this’ll be the fifth mattress in three months. The rest of him, on the other hand, is driving up into Chris, his whole body folding down on the other man while his hands pin Chris in place by the hips. Chris makes a pained noise and Scott winces, doesn’t want that, but he can’t stop himself now, he’s too far over the crest and the best he can do is just to twist them over onto their sides, keep from completely suffocating the other man.

Then he’s shaking, coming so hard that black dots dance across the back of Chris’ sweat-sodden hair. He dimly hears Chris whining and himself rumbling in reassurance. Feels Chris shuddering between his hands like he’s feeling it through wads of cotton, a strange distant movement that doesn’t feel real.

Scott blinks and suddenly everything is almost too real. The sort of unpleasantly damp sheets under them, the jittery way Chris is still shivering against him. The visceral pull of the small, desperate noises that Chris is making, dragging Scott’s exhausted head forward to nose at the other man’s nape, and then to lever open his mouth—his jaw moves and feels like it’s made of concrete—so that he can just graze his teeth across the tendon straining out against the skin.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” Chris says, soft and thready, more of a prayer than a whisper, and then he seizes up against Scott.

A few sticky drops dust over the backs of Scott’s fingers. He noses at Chris’ neck again, running purely on instinct, and Chris moans into his sag, head dropping back and hips canting slightly forward, drooping off Scott’s cock so the head of his softening cock brushes Scott’s hand. Scott rumbles, twisting his fingers around to rub at it, and Chris whimpers, then makes a quiet, throat-caught noise as they slowly settle together.

“Fuck,” Chris says again, several minutes later. He still sounds like he’s barely breathing. “Fuck. That was good.”

“Mmm,” Scott says. He’s just…he’s never exactly been a wordsmith, that’s Stiles, and right after sex he’s really not that great with words. So he just mouths at Chris’ nape a little, trying to get his point across that way.

Chris purrs at him, craning a little so Scott has better access, and then does this _shiver_ that just—does—things. Even though they only just—

This annoying buzz goes through Scott’s head, just like the alarm that goes off when you use the emergency exit, except that it isn’t an actual sound. He jerks; Chris jerks too, a half-second behind, and then makes a noise that’s weirdly annoyed and longing and hurt all rolled together. Scott looks down, concerned, and finds Chris hitching up his knees and realizes he just yanked out of him and—the buzz happens again. And that’s when Scott’s mind finally identifies it as one of the house wards.

Specifically, the one that goes off when Stiles is about to barge in, and no, Stiles will not be embarrassed about whatever he sees and isn’t going to have time for Scott to be embarrassed either. Which is usually for a good reason, so Scott scrambles off the bed, grabbing at the end of the bedsheet and at his pants on the floor. He gives his groin area a swipe with the sheet and stuffs his legs in the pants, not exactly in that order, and gets passably decent just before the bedroom door opens.

“Hey, sorry, I know it’s your sweetheart time but this hunter just walked into Deaton’s clinic and said he’s got the Argent sword,” Stiles says.

“Fuck,” Chris says. He’s also off the bed, though he has his back to Stiles because he’s still doing up the fly of his jeans. “Fuck. If he didn’t bring it with him, I’m tempted to just dump him back in whatever he came in.”

“That would be a really, really well-maintained ’67 Impala,” Stiles says, looking amused. “If, you know, that means anything to you.”

Chris sits on the edge of the bed and looks very frustrated, but ultimately he sighs and nods to Scott. “Probably should go.”

“Deaton all right?” Scott asks.

“Yeah, yeah, he’s just sort of unnerved, this guy’s got some kind of a rep, but that’s basically Deaton’s day now,” Stiles says. “I offered to stay and just call up Peter to get you—”

Chris growls under his breath.

“—but Deaton said nah, he’d be fine. Guy’s not an analogue so I just went with it,” Stiles finishes, grinning so much that while Scott normally just takes Stiles’ sense of humor as, well, Stiles, even he kind of wants to tell Stiles to stop it.

Thankfully, Stiles walks out then so Chris and Scott can finish getting dressed. “Analogue?” Chris grunts.

“That means that he wasn’t in our original timeline, as far as we know,” Scott says. He tugs his shirt down over his stomach and then offers Chris a hand and a smile. “Well, if he’s friendly, that’ll be a nice change, right?”

“Yeah, and if it’s who I think it is, it probably is our sword,” Chris sighs. “I just…never mind, let’s just get this over with.”

They head over to the clinic and chat a little with the man who brought the sword. It turns out Chris does know him, and the sword is the right one, and everything is good and so Scott is really annoyed with himself for not paying more attention. The Argent sword is a powerful symbol, and even if Chris no longer counts as a hunter—despite continuing to track down monsters—having it back gives them an instant credibility boost among the other hunter families. Not to mention that when they didn’t know where it was, there was always the risk that another hunter would use it to try and claim he was a spiritual successor, if not a blood one, to the Argents. Chris wants to make sure nobody can ever abuse his family’s legacy like Gerard did and Scott knows that that possibility has been eating at him.

So basically, this is a really important event. And the whole time Scott is sitting there and is really, really distracted by sex thoughts.

It’s just—they didn’t shower. They just threw on their clothes and went. And that’s happened before, but usually they’re running to some kind of emergency and Scott’s too busy to notice anything except who’s trying to hurt them now. But this time they’re just in Deaton’s clinic and Chris and the other hunter are talking and Scott keeps—keeps _smelling_ it.

Smelling himself, all over Chris. His spit dried on the back and side of Chris’ neck, traces of his sweat across Chris’ body—he almost thinks he can track where his hands have been, can see the shapes of his fingers in the waving lines of his scent, and then he has to twist his head aside and stare at Deaton’s test tubes to try and not embarrass himself. He wishes he’d gone with a looser pair of jeans.

Especially when he realizes that, well, _fuck_. He doesn’t swear a lot, he’s not a prude but he just doesn’t, but he doesn’t really know what else to say when it dawns on him that he can smell his come too. Leaking out of Chris, mixing a little bit with the smell of denim and then the denim scent gets stronger, sharper and it occurs to Scott that that’s because the denim is getting wet and then he has to go outside.

He shouldn’t, he’s Chris’ alpha, he should stay and support Chris but it’s either that or he’s going to—to—

“Scott?” says Chris from behind him. “Scott? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, sorry,” Scott says. “I just needed some air. You can go back if you need to.”

“We were pretty much done. It was getting to that awkward part where they try and say they wish they’d done something, without saying whether that would’ve included shooting me instead of letting my mother take me home,” Chris says. He’s dry about it, but when he comes around to look at Scott, he’s obviously still concerned. He hesitates, and then takes a step towards Scott, his hand coming up towards Scott’s chest. “Are you sure…was it something about him—”

The breeze changes direction at the same time that he moves, blowing into him rather than away, and Scott gets a full noseful and the next thing he knows, he has Chris pressed up against the wall of the clinic, both hands fisted in the front of Chris’ shirt, face buried in the crook of Chris’ neck. Chris has his hands on Scott’s shoulders but they’re not pressing or gripping, they’re tense and flat with the fingertips not touching Scott. When he speaks, it’s with a placating, whining undernote to his voice.

“Scott?” he says. “Scott, what—”

Scott snarls, low and possessive. He shouldn’t do that, he should do something else, say something—something like, he’s really not an asshole, he’s got his damn instincts under control, has for years, he’s just having a tiny problem but it’s totally not Chris’ fault. But he just—he _smells_ and he keeps snarling, running his nose and mouth up the side of Chris’ throat as Chris whimpers and bends it up for him, submits with a shiver that makes Scott’s fangs slip out.

“We have to go,” Scott manages. “Home. Now.”

It’s pretty much all Scott can do to pry himself off Chris and get in the car. He rolls down all the windows and turns on the fan as high as it’ll go, and neither he nor Chris say a word, though he can feel Chris glancing over and over again at him.

The air helps. By the time they pull into the garage, Scott almost feels like he might be capable of explaining himself. But then Chris detours into the laundry room instead of walking straight into the kitchen, and there’s a load just finishing up so the vent is going and the air blows his scent back into Scott and Scott just.

He walks in after Chris, who’s stripped off his shirt and is dropping it in the basket. Walks in and sees that, sees a long lean back, lightly gold skin streaked with white where the sweat’s dried up to a crust. And Chris’ jeans pulling taut over his ass as he bends, smelling like—

“What the—Scott?” Chris grunts, slammed into the front of the washing machine, his hands slapping out a rhythm-less series of soft metallic taps. “Scott, what are you—”

Scott is kneeling on the floor and holding Chris by the hips. And then he’s doing that and shoving his face against the seat of Chris’ jeans, so hard that he can hear the tiny snaps of thread in the crotch seam, and Chris has stopped talking to make a sharp in-suck of a moan. God, the smell.

He growls. Chris shivers, and then starts scrabbling at the washing machine again, trying to hike himself up. Scott doesn’t know why he’s doing that but it’s moving him away, moving away the spot with the strongest scent and no.

He growls again and Chris stops that, a long, quavering _what-do-you-want_ whine coming from him. So Scott shows him, pulls him back down and just—just rubs all along the seam, sniffing, pressing in against the denim till it yields, just sucking that smell right through the thick fabric till he’s got it about as intense as it’s going to get.

And then, God, it changes a little, a trickle of Chris’ scent weaving into it. The man’s starting to leak precome and Scott shudders. Then drags Chris completely off the washing machine. Chris goes willingly, dropping to his hands and knees before Scott even snarls at him too, one arm going back as he jerks feverishly at his jeans.

Scott steps back just long enough to shuck his own pants, and then drops over the other man. Chris has his fly open but his jeans are only a few inches down his legs. Impatient, Scott grabs one side and yanks them out of the way; Chris hisses as something catches but then pushes roughly back, his head dropping, hips rising, and God, but Scott barely remembers to get his fingers in front of his cock, push those in first. Check whether they’ve still got enough lube, try and stretch Chris out.

It hasn’t been that long and if they fuck hard enough, it gets over Chris’ healing, he doesn’t tighten up right away. And Scott shouldn’t think of it like that, he really shouldn’t, but he does and he _likes_ it, likes the idea that his beta’s body remembers him and Chris is humping up onto his fingers, moaning, buttocks chafing against the front of Scott’s thighs and sometimes rising high enough to press around Scott’s wrist, almost like a grip, like they’re trying to drag Scott into him and Scott’s had enough.

“God, yes, alpha, alpha please,” Chris rasps. His voice breaks as Scott pushes himself into him, nuzzling up his spine, scattering bites along the way till Scott is sucking at the edge of his shoulder, and then he groans and lets his head thump against the floor. “Scott, Scott, fuck, yes, fuck, _fuck_ —”

“Fucking smell you, me, me on you,” Scott mumbles. His hands keep slipping off Chris’ hips, fresh sweat mixing into the dried traces and making them wet again. He bites into Chris’ shoulder, half for a hold, half because he just _wants_ to.

“I know, I know.” Chris lets out ragged cries in between his words, contorting himself to press up into Scott’s mouth and back onto Scott’s cock at the same time. “Know, I know, I could smell you too, Jesus, just couldn’t fucking get him to stop _talking_ to me, just—fuck, fuck, please, harder—”

They slide across the floor, banging into the basket, the dryer, some bucket that’s there for some reason. When they hit the far wall Chris twists and gets his forearm against it, braces himself and almost immediately has his arm slip as he suddenly jerks and whines, his climax catching him. Scott isn’t quite there but he’s close enough that he keeps fucking Chris, can’t pull himself back, can’t even slow down. Just keeps ramming his hips up, gripping Chris’ hips hard enough that he can feel how they jar at the impact.

Chris goes half-limp, his knees sliding out from under him as he claws weakly at the floor and the wall. He’s not even talking now, just whining, strained noises that urge Scott on, and Scott pulls himself together enough to at least get his arm around Chris’ waist, get them tilted over to lean against the dryer. Makes Chris shift around him, squeezing his cock slightly differently and something about that just—does it.

Scott ends up sitting against the dryer, Chris sprawled over his lap, head lolling against his shoulder. He gasps a few times, watching the ceiling light move lazily in slowing circles overhead. The world settles.

And then he slowly realizes that Chris is hitching against him. It’s not just squirming, just Chris being uncomfortable and wanting off; that’s what he thinks first and he regrips Chris’ hips, about to lift the man and then Chris moans and shivers, chest bowing up towards Scott so that his gaze drags down the rivulet of sweat along the breastbone. And further, to the smeared, flushed cock that’s standing out against Chris’ belly.

“God, please, please,” Chris mumbles. “Please, again, I can’t—”

Scott reaches down and wraps his hand around it and Chris jerks violently enough that Scott lets it go. Grabs Chris’ hips to steady him, and then releases one to grab the hand Chris tries to drag over his thigh and to his cock. “You’re gonna—it’s too soon, it’s not—”

“No, I know, I know, but please, _please_.” Chris twists his head around, presses his forehead against Scott’s cheek. Makes the low, begging noise of a beta who needs to submit. “Please, Scott. Just—”

So Scott puts his hand back. Carefully. His head’s mostly cleared now, he’s not just caught up in things. Mostly. When Chris jerks again, whining, pain mixed with elation in his voice, Scott’s gut shifts in odd, not entirely bad ways.

He doesn’t like hurting people, even when he’s so gone he’s literally molesting Chris in a public parking lot. Chris—likes being pushed, likes it a little more than Scott is comfortable with. They’ve sort of talked about it and Scott gets where Chris is coming from, gets that Chris sees it not so much hurting as being encouraged to test himself, knowing he’s got somebody to catch him if he doesn’t make it. He can understand that. But on a gut level, some of the stuff Chris sometimes seems to want just—doesn’t work for him.

But Chris gets that too, gets all twisted up when he thinks he’s dragged Scott into something miserable and that just doesn’t work for either of them. So Scott wants to avoid that too, and—he waits a little bit. His hand just wrapped around Chris’ cock, firm and tight but still as Chris hitches a couple more times, each time smaller than the last, too tired to really push for it himself.

And when Chris finally stops, Scott starts to move. Just nuzzling the side of Chris’ face and throat, purring as Chris gasps and catches up on air. Gets himself together enough that he can tilt his head back into it. Can stretch, shaky and slow, when Scott does drag his hand up the length of Chris’ cock.

“Shit, shit,” Chris moans. His hips stutter up and Scott stops, hand halfway through the return stroke, but Chris drops back, breath just a little bit faster. “Shit. I can’t—”

“It’s okay,” Scott murmurs, mouthing at the back of Chris’ neck. He works up to behind Chris’ ear, just his thumb moving over Chris’ cock, drawing a lopsided circle against the skin till Chris hisses and rolls his hips a little. “Okay, it’s okay, one more, one more, okay—”

“Okay. Okay, alpha, okay, shit, shit—” Chris grabs at Scott’s arm, the one not busy with his cock, but then lets go and flops back against Scott, slipping into a slow, riding rhythm as Scott works his cock “—okay, God, please, more—”

Scott has to stifle a groan into Chris’ neck as the man shifts around his own cock. He’s soft, and not getting hard again any time soon, but he still feels it and he manages to keep his hand moving but he groans again and Chris echoes him.

“One more,” he mutters, letting his teeth scrape at Chris’ shoulder. He lifts his head as Chris hitches sharply, almost there, and then drops it to press his mouth to just where the neck and shoulder join. “Chris, one—”

Chris seizes his arm again, digging in so hard Scott smells blood—Chris’ nails are still blunt but he’s just gripping that hard. His body hangs against Scott, singing like a taut bowstring, and then he goes slack with a dying, rasping cry. His hand comes off Scott’s arm and knocks into the floor while a couple quivers ripple down his thighs to fade into his calves, and then he’s very, very still.

Scott presses his face against Chris’ throat again, checking pulse and breathing. They’re both okay, though Scott doesn’t really relax till Chris twitches. Then he slouches back himself, wrapping his arms around the other man and just cradling Chris.

“Hey,” says Peter.

His voice is muffled. Because the door is shut. Scott doesn’t remember shutting the door.

“If you’re done in there, I’d like to remind you that the cleaning supplies are above the dryer,” Peter goes on. “Also, please never, ever do that again during snacktime. You’re just lucky that I came down first and got the door shut before Derek ran in.”

Scott winces, and then nips at Chris’ throat because he can hear an annoyed growl rising in it. “Thank you!” he calls to Peter. “And yeah, we’ll, um, tidy up.”

“You’re going to disinfect _everything_ ,” Peter says. “And put on gloves before you take out the loads from the dryer and the washer. And then do all of the laundry in the baskets.”

“Seriously?” Chris mutters. “We’ll clean but I don’t think he hosed things down when we caught him and Stiles in your car.”

“Because that’s a _rental_ , Scott could just take it back and get a new one,” Peter says in a sniffy voice. “Do it or else Talia’s going to bring it up at the next pack meeting.”

Both Scott and Chris wince. Then Scott puts his hand against Chris’ belly. That stops whatever Chris was going to say back and there’s a moment of silence. Then, thankfully, the garage door opens and Stiles asks why Peter is standing there and Peter immediately starts complaining and Stiles walks him off. Scott sighs, then laughs quietly as Chris rumbles in irritation.

“It’s okay,” Scott says. He looks around them, absently nuzzling at Chris’ neck. “It’s okay. I just—”

“That was good,” Chris says. He’s a little pointed, and then he cranes his head around to brush his mouth against the side of Scott’s jaw. When he speaks again, his voice is softer but no less sure. “It was good.”

“We really have to not do this by the laundry,” Scott says after a second. “Peter’s kind of got a point about that.”

Chris huffs, but he’s got a little bit of a purr going under that. “Yeah, well, fine. Just…we’re doing it again, right?”

Scott looks at him. Chris is ridiculously hopeful, under the sly look, and Scott just—he sighs and kisses him. “Yeah, probably.”

“Good,” Chris says, kissing back. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, that's a stealth _Supernatural_ cameo.
> 
> They forgot the sword, so Stiles brought it back from the clinic.


	10. Stiles and Peter PWP

“I was well-known, sure, but definitely not popular,” Stiles says, circling Peter’s hole with a fingertip. He tracks through a dampish spot and goes back to it as Peter shivers, head tucked against Stiles’ neck, hands trembling where they’re loosely clasped across the back of Stiles’ shoulder. “Definitely not ever prom king material. Not that I wanted to be, but…I dunno, sometimes I do think I could’ve gotten a little trophy or something like that. We kind of extended a lot of their lives and all.”

“And a trophy’s going to be enough to make up for that?” Peter’s trying to sound sarcastic, but he’s breathy, little feathery jerks running through his body every time Stiles starts to dip a finger back into him. When Stiles presses a kiss to the top of his head, he makes this tiny, soft noise, just a little break in his breath, that just does really terrible, awful, perverted things to Stiles’ mind. “Mmm, well, having been briefly popular, don’t think the social standing really helps much. You don’t get away with as much as you think.”

Stiles laughs as he wipes up a sweat trail with the end of his nose. “And that’s why you were popular, obviously. For the improved alibis.”

“Well, it comes up,” Peter says, all offended. Really offended, that whisper-sensitive pride of his rearing up.

But unlike with other, older, vengeance-happy versions, all Stiles has to do is just slip a finger into him. Not even all the way, just up to the second knuckle, just push it in and stroke nice and firm along his twitching flesh and Peter arches likes a pleased cat, all outwinged shoulders and sudden, surprised _ah_ noises dropping from parted lips that just look so goddamn sweet and delicious Stiles has to roll him over.

He goes with it, too. Just goes with it, his legs falling apart again, chin lifting so Stiles can lap at the underside of his jaw, work over all those beautiful little werewolf instincts. Teenage Peter is less experienced and less sure of himself, but it’s just _how_ he is, just so easy about opening up and letting Stiles edge him along, show him a few things, introduce him to stuff that has him moaning and clinging, his hands as tight as a second skin to Stiles’ shoulders. And making those noises, God, but sometimes Stiles thinks if he’s ever going to go evil, it’s gonna be something like that that lures him down the black hat path.

“Oh, oh, God, wait, wait, too much, I—oh, my God, what did—what’d you—is that?” Peter pant-pleads, shivers going to full-on shakes as Stiles rubs a fingertip around those clenching insides, curls the rest of his palm over one ridiculously, lusciously compact buttock.

“Hmm, this?” Stiles says. Seriously, he gets longwinded but he honestly didn’t have a mental soundtrack like a porno crossed with a deranged cookbook, not till he got to this timeline and got to have this gorgeous, adorably willing boy riding his hand whenever he damn well wants. 

Stretching those shoulders back against the bed, pressing them out like Peter’s offering up their edges for nibbles, and when Stiles takes up that offer, Peter whimpers and hikes a knee up, starts dragging it with increasing urgency along Stiles’ side till it bumps up into Stiles’ elbow. Stiles hums into Peter’s skin and Peter hits him on the back, weak as a kitten, before falling into a tender little shiver that just grips his ass around Stiles’ finger, tight and sweet, so much so that Stiles’ cock twitches like it can feel it even though it’s tracking along the inside of Peter’s thigh, closer to Peter’s knee.

“No, no, not that, I knew about—about that, I wasn’t _completely_ —I did stuff,” Peter says. Indignant, little adorable thing that he is, indignant and groaning in the same breath, his hips rolling slowly into Stiles’ hand. “No, your—your thumb—”

“What, oh, _this_?” Stiles runs it from Peter’s hole again, scraping lightly at a sensitive little fold of skin before pressing harder as he slides along the perineum. He can feel the wiry hairs pulling straight under his thumbpad and from the way Peter hitches, it seems to tickle a little bit. “Never heard of external prostate massage before?”

“Maybe—not in—those _terms_ ,” Peter huffs. So goddamn _adorable_ , trying to not let on what he does and doesn’t know, and then his head crushes back and he moans, fingers pulling repeatedly at Stiles’ hand as Stiles angles his thumb up and hooks his finger inside towards it, catching Peter in a loose pinch that has him squirming wordlessly, pride forgotten as he tips his chin back, desperately offering up his throat.

Stiles swears under his breath, just a meaningless, instinctive string of words, just rambling as his brain tries to accept what it’s seeing, just believe that it’s all actually real and not some really, really detailed, insanely persuasive fever-dream he’s having to stay semi-sane and moral during their time-jumping. He drops onto his other elbow while he’s not thinking, just going with it and licking at that pretty neck, feeling the vibrations of Peter’s moans against his mouth. Peter tugs harder at his shoulders, trying to get him fully over, get his weight down and finally he can’t help but answer that plea, shifting just as Peter hitches himself a last time, making broken noises as Stiles maneuvers his other hand in and helps stroke the come out of Peter’s cock.

He nuzzles up the side of Peter’s throat at the same time, biting every so often, till the last drop ekes out of the tender crown of Peter’s cock. So goddamn pretty when Stiles looks down at it, frosted with fading rose-pink sides, and Stiles half-sucks his breath and somehow ends up with Peter’s lower lip between his teeth, teasing it as Peter feeds his little noises right into Stiles’ mouth.

“Man, the days of primitive Internet porn,” Stiles snickers, not really meaning it. Again, just letting his mouth run as he takes his time savoring the lovely, eager thing folded up around him. “I’m so, so tempted to just kick off the proliferation early.”

Peter snorts, then cranes his head over so that he can lip at the back edge of Stiles’ jaw. “Well, what’s stopping you?”

“Um, so, also there’s a lot of unorthodox financing structure to be built up, and lobbying and cultural shifts, and just a lot of support work and Lydia’s kind of all, Stiles, we do not have to invent every single shady part of the Internet, people can do that shit themselves,” Stiles says. He presses his face against the side of Peter’s head, breathing in deep—he might not have the werewolf senses but he thinks he gets enough of an idea, just with the slight salty sting and the ticklish graze of Peter’s soaked curls running past his nose—and then starts to shift back. “There are easier current ways to make money.”

Peter starts to snort again, and then makes this little yelping noise that’s half-protesting, half-pained. Stiles freezes, obviously, and Peter reaches down, bats around and then curls his fingers around Stiles’ wrist. Poor kid’s still too done in to actually make Stiles move his hand, werewolf or not, but he yanks hard enough for Stiles to get an idea of where Peter wants that hand.

“Not yet,” Peter says, staring up at him, all demand and plea at the same time. He sucks in his breath as Stiles watches, swollen lips drawing together towards a plump curve, then cants his hips so that his softened cock smacks a bit against Stiles’ stomach. “Shut up, I might not know all the terms but I know I want it. Come on, please, I know you’re hard enough. And if you’re not, there’s some spell you can use, there’s no way you don’t look up that kind of thing.”

“You are so goddamn precious,” Stiles laughs. He obliges, but takes his time about it, dropping his hips and dragging himself up along Peter’s thigh as Peter makes impatient noises, hits his side and back. “Adorable little brat.”

“I am _not_ ad—” Peter starts.

Then finishes as a long, low whimper, seizing up a little bit around Stiles, his whole body seeming to pull in, wrap itself around Stiles’ cock in a terribly addictive way. He drops his head back again and then heaves his arm across Stiles’ back, his fingers kind of tickling as he grasps feebly at Stiles’ shoulderblade, the rest of him slowly relaxing into the bed.

“Also, honestly, I’m probably just never going to get around to it. I mean, I’m all with the hands-on and you’re just…feeding that like Scott feeds Derek when Derek makes the sad puppy face, and we are never getting out of this bed,” Stiles says to Peter. Sort of seriously. Because Peter shifts, hips twisting a little, one shoulder nudging up, getting comfortable and he’s _getting comfortable_ , just fitting himself around Stiles’ cock, goddamn teenager and he’s already okay with that, more than okay with it, demanding it and then, once Stiles has given it to him, having that pleased little face and making those contented sounds and well, yeah. “Never.”

“I’m fine with that. Might not make us popular, but who cares anyway,” Peter says, smiling up at him, drawing up crossed arms to hang loosely over the back of Stiles’ neck. “What, did you want to go?”

Stiles laughs again. “Nope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will admit it was a struggle to keep the plot momentum going in the main story and not spend loads of wordage on Stiles lovingly introducing virgin!Peter to every kink ever, Jesus.


	11. Adorability overload

“Oh, my God, just kill me now,” murmurs one of the women, the one using the edge of her coat to fan her throat while chewing her lip. “Just look at that. I mean, are you kidding me?”

“I know, right?” says her companion. “The little kids, and then he’s playing in the sand with them, and…he’s way, way too young to be the dad, right? Older brother? God, they’re cute.”

“I think he’s too young for us,” the first woman mutters.

Not that she stops staring at Peter, who, Stiles can tell, is smirking behind the big mound of sand he’s protecting from Cora’s grabby hands. He dusts off Derek, who’s tripped in his eagerness to upend a fresh bucket of sand, and then reaches over to hand Laura the toy shovel. And then, as the women coo, he nonchalantly straightens up and gives his hair a fingertwist, which artfully skims the front curls over his forehead instead of pushing them back.

Stiles hears a scuff off to the side and hastily waves his hand at Scott, who’s coming up with the rest of the ice cream. There’s a bush between them and the women, but it’s not so thick that they won’t be spotted if the women hear something. Scott’s been through this enough so that he sighs very quietly, but keeps it down as he walks up to Stiles’ side.

“He’s explaining to them what’s the best way to sneak around the elementary school,” Scott mutters after a couple seconds. “You know that, right?”

“Well, I didn’t know it was the school, but I figured it was nefarious just from, y’know, how he keeps making little sand bumps and sneaking his hand up to them and then whacking them,” Stiles mutters back. “Obviously taking out a guard. Or a janitor, as the case may be.”

“Stiles, I’m not sure if that’s really that good an—” Scott starts.

Of course, then Chris walks into view, returning from a trip to the public restrooms with Erica. He bends over to let Erica swing out of his arms and onto the grass near the sandbox, and so Scott’s good intentions get slightly derailed by the positioning of Chris’ ass in his line of sight.

The women notice too, but it’s not till Erica gleefully grabs at the grass, only to squeak in dismay as the grasshopper escapes, that they fully turn their attention away from Peter and to Chris. Who whipped out an arm, grabbed the grasshopper mid-hop, and then plopped down with his legs encircling Erica. She toddles up to him, frowning, and he carefully opens his hand to show her the grasshopper. After a second’s hesitation, the grasshopper tries to jump away, but Chris apparently was advising Erica in the meantime, because she snatches at it again and this time she gets it—with a little bit of an assist from the hand Chris sticks under her belly to keep her from falling over his knee.

“Oh, my _God_ ,” says the first woman. “Now, he’s legal for sure, but—”

“I don’t know, I think there has to be something illegal about that,” murmurs the second woman, as Erica lifts her cupped hands towards Chris, beaming her little face off, and he grins back and ruffles her hair.

At that point Stiles strolls over to the sandbox. He hands his ice cream cones over to the kids, who promptly abandon their lesson in guerrilla warfare, and then drops down next to Peter. “Jealous?”

“What, of him?” Peter huffs, shaping up what Stiles now can identify as a rough map of the school playground. “Why would I be? It’s not like I need—”

“Compliments from a couple strangers who aren’t even your type, yeah, that does seem silly,” Stiles says, slipping his arm around Peter’s waist. 

He lets Peter get in one half-hearted wiggle, then leans forward to press his cheek against Peter’s nape. Peter throws a sidelong glance back over one shoulder, already leaning into Stiles, and then shrugs and looks down. There’s a small—not shy, but there’s a similar incredulousness to it—smile sneaking over Peter’s face.

“What’s silly is they don’t even have any idea how lucky they are that Scott’s too busy trying to think of an excuse to get territorial,” Peter says. He jerks his chin and Stiles follows the gesture to where a flushing, nostril-twitching Chris is helping a distracted-looking Scott keep Erica from just smashing her ice cream onto her face. “I think we’re about to get dumped on again.”

Stiles snickers and he sees Scott flinch; Chris sort of flicks an annoyed look towards him and Peter, then shifts around to recruit Laura and Derek to come over and eat the second ice cream that Chris obviously isn’t feeling anymore. “They watched the kids all day yesterday, adorbs,” Stiles says to Peter, with a peck behind Peter’s ear to cut off that unimpressed snort. “We do owe them.”

Peter isn’t exactly buying it, with that disgruntled expression on his face, but he lets Scott and Chris go “get more napkins” without any comment. And then, when they’re gone, he pulls out a pack of tissues from his pocket and gives them to Laura and tells her that part of an alpha’s job is making sure her pack is clean and sanitary.

“You’re so adorable when you’re laying evil mentor groundwork,” Stiles laughs. And then, when Peter sniffs pointedly, he lets his hand drop a little bit and cops a feel of Peter’s buttock, hiding it from the kids with his leg. So Peter makes one of those small, faintly-outraged noises of his that both make Stiles smirk and make his hand itch for another squeeze, and the kids look over and Stiles smiles back at them. “Finish up the ice cream, guys. We’re gonna go after that, gotta get you home for your baths.”

“Baths?” Peter says under his breath, as the kids let out feeble protests. “What are we, poodles?”

Stiles shrugs. “Hey, better than napkins.” He cocks a brow at Peter. “Unless you just want to stay out here all night, waiting for Scott and Chris to come back?”

Peter elbows him. Stiles pretends to grunt and gets in another kiss to the side of Peter’s neck, and then leans his forehead there, grinning as Peter reaches back and puts a hand down more on Stiles’ thigh than his knee. Yep, just about time to head home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think baby!Erica probably isn't that far off a cat: utterly cute, utterly bloodthirsty about honing her predator skills. And Chris would totally be intense about teaching her that stuff.


	12. Peter and his relations with the kids, then and now

Being a werewolf, Peter has supernatural senses that allow him to detect potential ambushes well ahead of time, and he certainly doesn’t neglect to use them. So as he walks up to the door of the new family home, he swings his backpack off his shoulder and around to the front, positioning it over his left hip. Over his right, he holds his laundry bag. Then, perfectly shielded from the expected result of the little feet thundering towards the other side of the door, he heads inside…

…and somehow gets nailed with three children anyway. “How do you _do_ that?” Peter grumbles, swaying dangerously near to toppling as his nieces and nephew swarm up him, shields be damned. Cora’s even found a free stretch of arm to glom onto. “Oh, come on, I only skipped one weekend and I know you didn’t even miss me, with Scott dropping that pumpkin-picking trip on you—”

“Yay yay yay!” “Peter!” Derek, Laura and Cora completely ignore him, as well as any sense of weight distribution, and continue their incoherent welcome chatter.

Peter drops the laundry bag and then has the arm space to squirm out of Cora’s grip without having her fall on her head, but as he’s straightening up from depositing her on the floor, Derek buffets him in the back of the knee with that stupid stuffed wolf Stiles gave him. He stumbles forward, knowing Laura—attached to his right hip—is dangerously close to being smacked into the wall, and then scrabbles to keep his bookbag with his new, very expensive, customized laptop from hitting the floor. For a second Peter teeters between the possibilities of ruined college semester and crying niece, and then, thankfully, a pair of hands grabs him by the waist and averts the choice altogether.

“Uncle Stiles!” Laura says, muffled between them. Then she makes an indignant noise. “Hey! I wasn’t done yet!”

“Sure, but you’ve got all weekend to kill the circulation in Peter’s limbs, do you really want to do that now and have nothing to look forward to?” Stiles asks as he tugs at her. “Besides, then you’re not going to have the hands for—”

“Oh! Mine! Alpha taste-tests for pack!” Finally dropping off, Laura scrambles back enough for Peter to see her furtively popping something into her mouth.

Peter looks over his shoulder. Stiles shrugs and pushes his chin forward, nudging Peter’s head back around as Stiles moves onto detaching Derek from Peter’s waist. “Yeah, so your sister’s gonna get mad at me for rotting their fangs out. Small price to pay for salvaging your cool factor, adorbs.”

“I don’t think that cookie has anything to do with my cool factor,” Peter mutters. Stiles _has_ reached around to ruffle Derek’s hair, but his other hand is still very firmly on Peter’s waist, pushing Peter back against the other man for now-unnecessary support. “Witness the silly nicknames from the future—”

Two of Stiles’ fingers slide up under the hem of Peter’s shirt, smoothing a ticklish, prickling vee of warmth across the edge of Peter’s abdomen. Peter bites down on his lip, _just_ stopping himself from letting out that small, wanting noise, as his stupid, silly, annoying boyfriend snickers and rubs his nose up behind Peter’s ear, when he knows that just makes Peter even more—

“Ew.” Derek clings to Peter a second longer, so he can look up at them with wrinkled nose, and then he lets go. He steps back till he’s alongside Laura, rubbing at his nose; she has saved him a little bit of cookie, which she smushes under his nostrils till he stops scowling and eats it. “Mom says that’s why you get the room at the end.”

“Yeah, not in the hallway,” Laura says. She pokes a scolding finger at them, then abruptly grabs Cora and runs off in the opposite direction. “First one to tell Mom gets the rest of the cookies!”

“I told them first! No fair!” Derek hollers, scrambling after her.

Peter sighs, then stoops to retrieve his laundry bag. “Nice to be welcomed home, I suppose,” he mutters.

“Awww, of course it is,” says Stiles, who is still holding onto Peter instead of, say, helping with Peter’s things. And the press of his hand over Peter’s belly is totally superfluous, Peter’s quite capable of straightening up himself. Even if Peter’s not bothering to object, or to avoid it when Stiles cranes around to catch his mouth for a quick kiss. “Just enjoy it now while you can. They’re not going to be like that forever.”

“That’s a small mercy,” Peter snorts. “Frankly, the sooner they grow out of it, the better.”

* * *

_Years Later_

Peter stares at his sister’s children, all of whom haven’t stirred an inch. He’s not even sure they’ve bothered to whiff the air, not that that’s really needed when he’s absolutely soaked in blood. “What a wonderful show of concern,” he drawls. “Why, yes, I’m fine, thank you for not asking when your uncle bothered to deal with the last of the zombies so nobody’s _prom_ or _basketball championship_ or _master’s thesis_ will be delayed due to mass hysteria and murder.”

Laura irritably waves a hand, then growls as her fingers accidentally snag her uncharacteristically rats-nest hair, but otherwise she doesn’t stir out of the snarl of printouts, books, and empty energy-drink cans scattered in the corner of the living room she took over about three weeks ago. “Lydia texted us half an hour ago and said you guys got the necromancer already, she says stand down and we do, okay?”

“Mom said help yourself to the leftovers on the top two shelves in the fridge,” Derek mumbles, eyes firmly glued to his phone. When Peter glares at him, he hunches up slightly under that leather jacket he insists on wearing everywhere, even inside the house. “We knew you were fine. Uncle Scott went out to get that one shampoo you like, he wouldn’t do that if you were in trouble.”

“Yeah, he and Uncle Chris would’ve shoved Erica onto us and run off to go beat up somebody,” Cora says. She at least stands up once she’s saved whatever she was working on. Puts her laptop aside and then hops over the couch to get a plastic tarp from the closet, so Peter doesn’t have to drip his way to the basement shower. “Hey, so now that the necromancer’s gone, can we talk about that bitch Felicia and the fact that she keeps sprinkling love powder in the locker rooms? I mean, I know she doesn’t make anything that works, but I think she’s at least found a combo werewolves are allergic to and it’s annoying.”

Peter pauses in the middle of scraping off his filthy, soiled socks. “Let me get this straight. I have not yet scraped the latest person to try and kill us off my claws, and _you_ are—”

“I just want ideas, uncle, you don’t have to do any of the work. I’ll do all the execution,” Cora says, rolling her eyes. And then she has the thoughtfulness to produce a towel, even if it’s hand-size and thus woefully inadequate. “I mean, way Uncle Stiles was sounding, doesn’t seem like you had time to fully take out the last month on this zombie-raising asshole, so I’m just offering you a chance for extra vengeance.”

“Ah.” Once the gunk is wiped off his face, Peter takes a fresh look at his niece. “Well, when you put it that way…of course. What’s family for, after all, and for that matter, Cora, you are now my favorite for the weekend. Let’s add plotting against your siblings and you have a deal.”

“What?” Laura and Derek say, their heads snapping up.

Cora shrugs indifferently. “Whatever, sure, I got the time, I guess.”

“Hey, so, everybody home and safe and we all a big, happy family again?” Stiles says, coming in from the garage just then. And immediately stopping, as he’s far too astute to not read the expressions correctly. “Okay, then, maybe not…”

Peter straightens up and kisses the corner of his mouth. Stiles’ brow quirks suspiciously, but neither that nor the blood stop him from putting an arm around Peter and kissing Peter back. “Oh, no, I think we’re welcome.”

“Yeah?” Stiles says skeptically, and then he starts to grin as Peter plucks at his equally-stained shirt. He reaches up and rubs his thumb over a streak on Peter’s jaw, then puts both hands on Peter’s hips and starts edging them towards the basement. “Yeah, well…good, since I don’t know what everybody else’s plans were, but I think you and me and the downstairs shower need a good, long session reacquainting ourselves.”

“Sure, we weren’t going to use it,” Laura says, in the nasally tone of someone stuffing fingers up their nostrils. “Bye, Uncle Stiles, see you later!”

“ _Please_ later. A lot later,” Derek mutters.

Cora’s pinching her nose too, but she at least has the decency to wave before she shuts the basement door on them. Children, really. They never do grow up all the way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recently watched a documentary discussing how wolves may band together, but until there are puppies to care for, they aren't completely welded into a pack because they don't have a clear common cause. And it would have been nice to see the Hales functioning as a family at some point, rather than a motley collection of semi- to full-sociopaths scheming against each other. Otherwise how on earth did the younger Hales survive past toddler stage?
> 
> ...yes, Derek still has Sourwolf. Or _a_ Sourwolf, because obviously Lydia's the kind who will have kept a supply of replacement toys on hand to swap in whenever one got too beat up. Latest version is still carefully and lovingly packed away in the back of Derek' closet.


End file.
